


Who Are You?

by There_Once_Was_A_Girl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dogs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I seriously fucked up Canon, Listen just read the summary, M/M, Secret Identity, So does Bucky tbh, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, these two are not good at communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/There_Once_Was_A_Girl/pseuds/There_Once_Was_A_Girl
Summary: In a world where Tony didn't have the power to stop his company from double dealing (we are ignoring the whole Stane murder plot here), Iron Man became an industrial terrorist responsible for systematic attacks against Stark Industries weapons plants. Meanwhile Tony Stark has disappeared from the public eye to recover from his kidnapping.Bucky Barnes got his memories back earlier in this universe. He joined Steve and the Avengers (a team gathered together earlier, when Steve woke up earlier, and without Tony). He has two dogs that he adores, a team, and his best friend, but sometimes he likes to try to live a normal life.Anthony Moore and James Rogers meet one day in the supermarket (not long after Tony's return) neither of them know who the other is. They just know they like each other. Months into their relationship Bucky and Tony are both struggling to keep up their secrets and secret identities.This is the story of how Tony fights to fix his mistakes, Bucky fights to understand the future, Bucky figures out that Tony is Tony Stark, the world figures out that Tony Stark is Iron Man and Iron Man realizes his boyfriend is the winter soldier, and shit just sort of blows up





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MassiveSpaceWren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/gifts).



> In which Tony is working and taking to his boyfriend

Stark Enterprises belonged to Tony Stark only in name. He was CEO. It was his company. He was in charge. His board was happy to reassure him of all of those facts before adding, that he was in charge “within reason.” That was right before they shut him out. Not that they would ever say it like that. They said they were relieving him of the heavy responsibilities he had in order to give him time to recover from his trauma. They were full of shit. What “within reason” meant was that he wasn’t allowed to make decisions like stopping weapons manufacturing from Stark Enterprises. They said it was a completely absurd concept, that it would destroy the company. He couldn’t tell them why he needed it to stop. He had no clue who was orchestrating the double dealing to terrorists, and he wasn’t going to risk letting whoever it was know that he knew. Tony was trapped between a rock and a hard place, he couldn’t stop his company from making weapons used to kill and enslave people, he couldn’t convince them they had to, couldn’t say a word about it. All Tony Stark could do was stop designing new weapons for them. 

Iron man was a different matter. 

Tony hadn’t intended to use his latest creation to destroy his own company. He had hoped he could use it to help people, to protect them. He owed them that much. After years of ignorance, years of enabling what was happening, he owed people his protection. Which in a sense was why he was currently sneaking around a factory in Ohio in the iron man armor. 

“Five heat signatures that register as human in the building.” Jarvis reported, having completed his scans. 

“Thanks, Jay, make me a map.” Tony told him. He waited as Jarvis marked out where each of the night security guards in the factory were. Tony had already taken care of the security outside. Once he had locations he took to the air. He was fond of the high ceilings in most of his factories, they made it easy for him to use the suit to fly around quickly. He managed to drag each of the security guards to knock them out within a minute, then he scooped each of them up and flew them out to the security booth at the gate where the others were. He didn’t bother tying any of them up. He had nothing against the poor guards, it wasn’t their fault, the problem was a lot higher up than them. Anyway he had designed his drugged darts to last for two full hours. By the time the guards woke up he would be long gone and so would the factory. He took off above the factory. 

“Alright, let’s fire everything we’ve got.” He said. Soon the entire factory was nothing but a flaming shell of a building. Tony nodded and headed back home. 

“Good work tonight, Sir. I don’t think we were caught on camera this time.” Jarvis observed. 

“Here’s hoping.” Tony agreed. He didn’t particularly mind that people had realized that Iron Man was destroying Stark Enterprises weapons’ factories. What bothered him was that this apparently made him some sort of criminal which was the last thing he needed. As far as he was concerned he was allowed to blow up his stuff if he wanted to. He was trying to do something good, something worthwhile, but he was being labeled an industrial terrorist. He was halfway back to New York when his phone started ringing. A familiar image popped up on the helmet display, a beautiful man with stunning blue eyes, a square jaw line that was to die for, and messy dark hair that was tied back into a bun. James Rogers, his boyfriend. Tony picked up, he always picked up for James, even at two in the morning

“Hey, what’s up, Babe?” He greeted. 

“Couldn’t sleep, figured you’d probably be up.” James answered. His voice was heavy with sleep, and it made Tony’s heart melt.

“You know me too well.” He said fondly. He didn’t ask why James couldn’t sleep. His boyfriend was an army vet, he had lost an arm in the war. Sometimes he struggled to fall asleep, Tony already knew that. James didn’t like to talk about it so Tony didn’t bring it up. He had told James he was always there if he needed to talk about it though. He had been through his own shit. 

“I know that you didn’t sleep last night because you were working, and you only slept three hours the night before that, and only because I dragged you to bed. So I know you need to go to sleep.” James told him. Tony chuckled. 

“I’m fine, I took a nap earlier today.” Tony insisted. 

“Anthony Moore, do not lie to me.” James insisted. Tony laughed properly. 

“You sound like my mother.” He teased. As a matter of fact, Moore was his mother’s maiden name. He had met James not long after he had gotten back from Afghanistan. He had been recently clean shaven (his beard had gotten fucked up in the desert so he saved it off to start over), and James hadn’t recognized him. Tony had taken advantage of the chance to distance himself from his name and his disaster of a company.

“Perish the thought,” James answered, “anyway it’s older brother more than anything. I spent my youth taking care of my younger brother. It’s a habit.” 

“Well, I am not your younger brother.” Tony reminded him. 

“I know, but I’m allowed to worry about you. I love you.” James told him. Tony beamed. 

“I love you too, so damn much you know that?” 

“I think you might have mentioned.” James said sweetly. “What are you up to at two in the morning?” 

“You know me, always working on new projects.” Tony told him. It wasn’t a lie, he was working on a new project a project called destroy the factory on the outskirts of Toledo, Ohio. James thought he was an electrical engineer whose family was independently wealthy but dead. He knew that Tony had once been kidnapped for ransom, he just didn’t know when. 

“What is it this time?” James asked. 

“Fixing a mistake I made, stopping shit from being dangerous and getting people hurt.” Tony answered. 

“And is this safe for you?” James asked.

“As safe as anything I do.” Tony told him. “Relax, James. I swear someday I’ll get you to relax.” They had been together for six months and Tony had been trying to get James to stop worrying about him the entire time. It hadn’t yet worked. He found the concern endearing, even though he would never say it. 

“Mmmm you’re good at helping me relax when you’re actually with me.” James told him. A shiver ran down Tony’s spine at his tone of voice. 

“You could meet me at my place in like an hour, and we could work on that.” He offered. 

“Only if we get some sleep afterwards.” James told him, and Tony could tell from his voice that he was smirking triumphantly. Tony laughed again, James was so good at making him laugh. 

“Who said we were going to be doing anything but sleeping?” He answered in a falsely innocent tone. James laughed at that. 

“I’ll see you in an hour, doll.” He said. 

“I look forward to it.” Tony agreed. James hung up. “How long until we get back to the apartment, Jarvis?” Tony asked. 

“Forty minutes until arrival sir.” Jarvis told him. Tony grinned. He had just enough time to get back to his downtown apartment (the only home James knew about), get out of the suit and clean up enough to look like he had been busy working on a late night problem.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short chapter of Bucky's POV after talking to Tony

Bucky hung up on Anthony and looked over at Steve. They had been on a mission that had kept them out late and had only just finished their post mission briefing when he called his boyfriend. 

“Right, I’m heading over to Anthony’s in like an hour.” He said with a grin. He couldn’t help the smile. He knew he shouldn’t have a boyfriend who didn’t really know who he was, but he couldn’t convince himself to give it up. 

He had met Anthony six months earlier, and he had been so damn sexy it was unfair. It wasn’t like Bucky could just not ask him out. And then he did ask him out and Anthony was perfect. He was brilliant and funny, and sweet despite trying to pretend he wasn’t sweet. He was selfless and unsure of himself despite his selfish arrogant act. He and Bucky had more in common than Bucky had thought possible. Once they started actually dating Bucky had had to come up with some answers quickly. When Anthony asked for his last name he had panicked and said Rogers. Steve teased him about it but Bucky figured it was fair, they were practically brothers anyway. Bucky had told the truth about losing an arm during his time in the army, but had lied and said that he worked training dogs. It wasn’t necessarily a complete lie, he did train dogs in his free time. He had realized that he was good at it, and enjoyed it when he started working with Ace. 

Ace was Bucky’s german shepherd. He was all black, his ears were too big for his head and the left one always flopped over, and Bucky adored him. Ace’s best friend was a tan and cream five pound pomeranian named Delilah. Bucky loved her just as much. Ace had found her one day when they were out for a walk. She had been in a box in a dumpster, pink rhinestone necklace and all. Obviously some idiot had gotten her as an accessory and then dumped her when they realized dogs took actual work. Ace had automatically been protective of the little dog, and the two had been inseparable ever since. It had been a year and a half since Bucky broke out of being the winter soldier and rejoined Steve. He had gotten Ace when he moved back to New York. It had been a year since he had joined Steve’s team, the Avengers. He had found Delilah around that time. 

“You need me to check on the dogs?” Steve asked. Bucky shook his head. 

“Nah, I should have time to get home, clean up and let them out real quick before I head over, just letting you know.” He said. 

“So he was just awake at two am?” Steve asked. Bucky shrugged. 

“You know him, he’s an insomniac.” He answered.

“I don’t know him actually, I only know what you tell me because you won’t let me meet him.” Steve huffed. 

“We’ve been over this, I have no explanation for ‘I know Captain America.’ If he sees me with you he will figure out who I am.” Bucky insisted. 

“And that is such a bad thing why?” Steve asked. 

“Because I have something normal and stable, for once in my life.” Bucky told him. “I love you to death, Stevie, you’re my best friend, you’re my brother, but I can’t be a superhero all the time. Anthony is a normal stable part of my life, he makes me feel human, and I feel better and more stable with him. I don’t want to lose the one normal thing in my life, okay?” 

“Fine. Fine, have fun with your boyfriend.” Steve told him. Bucky grinned. 

“I will.” He promised. He drove home in his reasonable, Subaru. He had tried to convince Steve to drive something more reasonable and safe than his old school motorcycle. Steve refused. He loved his motorcycle, and whenever he needed a vehicle with trunk space, he just stole Bucky’s car. 

As soon as he walked in the door Ace and Delilah were jumping all over him. He sat down and let them both lick his face. 

“I’m here, yeah, I’m home.” He told them, petting one with each hand. Delilah barked excitedly, and he grinned. “Yes, I know, I know I’ve been gone too long. I know.” He told her. Ace had somehow ended up halfway on top of him with a leg on his head. 

“Get off of me you dork.” Bucky told him, shoving the dog off. “Come on, we’ll go outside, yeah, let’s go outside.” He told them in a sing song voice. The two of them got excited about anything when he used that voice. They would behave themselves if he used a stern tone, they were well trained, but he was happy to just let them be dogs most of the time. He took them out to the tiny lot of grass behind his apartment building, and cleaned up after them before going back inside to take a shower. Once he was clean and dressed he carefully detached his metal arm. It had been updated since his soviet days so that he could take it off at will. It made it a lot easier to keep his identity as the winter soldier (now an Avenger) a secret. Anyway, sometimes it was nice not to have to deal with the prosthetic. It worked well, it was actually an incredible feat of engineering and he was was lucky to have it, but it wasn’t the same as a real arm. It glitched sometimes, and it was heavy. He liked being able to take it off and rest a bit. Before he left he picked up his phone and called his boyfriend again. 

“What’s up?” Anthony asked. 

“Can I bring the dogs? They’re being needy.” Bucky asked. 

“Please do, I love them.” Anthony told him. “I mean, you know I’m only dating you for your dogs right?” He teased. Bucky laughed. 

“Alright, good to know. I’ll be over in a few.” He promised.

“You sure you don’t want me to come over there?” Anthony asked. 

“Yeah, my place is a pit.” Bucky told him, by which he meant his place had weapons and bloody uniforms all over the floor. “See you soon.” he said with a grin. He brought the dogs downstairs. Ace jumped into the passenger seat as soon as he opened the door and He set Delilah right next to him. 

Sleeping next to Anthony Moore was one of the most comforting thing in the world. He was warm and had a habit of wrapping himself around Bucky as tightly as he could. Bucky never felt trapped, he felt loved and treasured. Anthony had told him before that he had been a bit of a player once upon a time, but Bucky knew he would never cheat. He trusted Anthony like he trusted almost no one else in the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Bucky wake up, eat breakfast, watch the news...

When Tony woke up he was alone in his bed except for Delilah. He could hear James in the kitchen, and the television on. He stroked Delilah’s fluffy head a few times and climbed out of bed. He tucked the small dog into his arms as he went to find his boyfriend. James was busy making eggs, Ace dancing around his feet as he moved through the kitchen. 

“Good morning, beautiful.” Tony said walking up and kissing James on the cheek. 

“Good morning, Anthony, darling.” James said. Tony sighed. 

“You can call me Tony you know?” He murmured softly. James chuckled. 

“I like Anthony. That’s what you said your name was when I met you. I think it suits you.” He said with a smile. The TV changed from a commercial back to the news. A pretty news anchor started talking. Tony focused on it within the first few words. 

“In other news the industrial terrorist people have been referring to as Iron Man struck another Stark Enterprises Factory late last night. The factory which produced weapons for the United States Army had top security which was somehow overcome. All security personnel were once more rendered unconscious and locked into a security booth outside of the blast radius before the factory was completely destroyed. We reached out to Mr Stark’s assistant but once again Mr Stark has refused to make a comment on the matter. This continues Tony Stark’s unprecedented absence from the public eye. No one has seen Mr Stark since his unorthodox press conference directly after his return from his kidnapping in Afghanistan more than six months ago. His personal assistant has stated that Mr Stark has retreated from being a public figure in order to heal from his ordeal. No news on how these very targeted attacks on his company have affected Mr Stark personally.”

Tony grimaced and looked over at James who had also turned his attention to the news. He looked upset. 

“There’s a guy named, Tony.” James pointed out. Tony nodded with a grimace. He was grateful that they hadn’t flashed a photo of him up on the screen when they mentioned him. He did look considerably different from the last photos of him but he didn’t want to take the chance. He had no beard and he had let his hair grow out slightly; it was wavy when he let it get longer. Still he worried that James would realize who he was someday, and then Tony would be in deep shit for lying. 

“I thought the whole point is that he isn’t really around. Hasn’t said a damn word about his own company being bombed. Seems like he doesn’t care much.” Tony pointed out. He was hoping people would start realizing that he gave exactly no fucks about the weapons factories, except to see them turn into dust. 

“He went through hell a few months ago, one can forgive his absence.” James said, “He hasn’t been completely absent from the world either, he recently started a charity to help refugees, sank over a billion dollars into it.” He pointed out. 

“Yeah, I’m not sure that solves what the guy did before.” Tony muttered. It was true that he had founded his own charity, trying to help the people whose lives he had ruined, but he couldn’t do as much as he wanted. He had also been running missions in the area to free villages and fight various insurgents but of course no one was reporting on that.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” James said with a frown. 

“Tony Stark was a certifiable dick. He was an ass and a fuck up, and all he’s done is build shit that kills people. I just don’t think that him losing a few weapons factories is such a horrible thing.” He couldn’t help voicing his actual opinions on himself. 

“Why are you referring to him in the past tense?” James asked. “Mr Stark is alive and well.” 

“Yes, I know, but he appears to be less of an asshole these days. I still don’t think it makes up for before.” 

“Whether it does or doesn’t, being an asshole doesn’t warrant destruction of property. It’s a crime. This… thing is blowing up millions of dollars worth of weaponry, and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.” James pointed out. He turned back to the stove and scooped scrambled eggs onto two plates. 

“Fine, you’re probably right. The Iron Man is a criminal.” Tony admitted. 

“I’m not sure why you sound so very resentful of that fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.” James said. Tony laughed. 

“No, I just wish he wasn’t, from what I’ve seen from pictures the technology used on the weapon is impressive. I would love to get my hands on it.” He admitted, or at least sort of admitted. He did love to get his hands on it, It was amazing stuff. He loved his suit. 

“Of course you would. You work more than any independently rich man I know.” James told him. Tony grinned. 

“I could make you an amazing new arm with that sort of technology.” Tony said. 

“I’ve already told you, the last thing I want is some sort of robotic prosthetic.” James told him. “You know that.” 

“I know, I know,” Tony said with a smile. “Do you have plans today?” 

“I’ve got to drop the dogs off at home and then I need to go to work.” James said with a sigh. Tony nodded. He didn’t want to let go of his boyfriend but he probably had to go back to his other home, the one with Jarvis and Pepper. Pepper was going to be on his ass about everything that happened. He ate breakfast with James and waited half an hour before leaving for home. As soon as he walked through the door Pepper was right there. 

“Anthony Edward Stark!” Pepper hissed, “What on earth were you thinking! You didn’t tell me about this! I thought you agreed, no more Iron Man missions without telling me!” 

“I’m sorry,” Tony muttered, “I only just found out that that plant had taken over construction of jericho missiles from the one I destroyed upstate, and they were going to send a shipment out in a few days. I had to stop it.” He insisted. 

“I understand your motives, I get it okay,” Pepper said. “But we’ve got to do something about this. You have to make a statement. You were rescued months ago, people have stopped sympathizing. They want to know what your reaction is to all of this.” Tony shook his head.

“I can’t. I won’t say anything. As far as I’m concerned Tony Stark is in a coma, Tony Stark is not waking up until I am done fixing up my messes.” Tony snapped. He meant it. He didn’t want to be who he used to be. He was determined to make up for what he had done and he couldn’t do that by being Tony Stark. 

“Tony, I’m sorry, I’m sorry about everything. You know I understand that you are upset that you’ve been through hell, and that there is awful shit going on that you want to end. I get that. But we have a reputation and a livelihood to protect. This is my job.” 

“Pepper, I won’t let the media get at me again.” Tony said. “Look I can make a statement in writing but no audio and no footage.” He insisted. Pepper huffed. 

“And is that because of your need to become someone else or is it because you don’t want your boyfriend to find out about who you are?” She demanded. “I’m not convinced he doesn’t live under a rock honestly, not not recognize you, even if you do look different these days.” She shook her head in disbelief.

“Pep, he doesn’t know who I am because I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to be Tony Stark. I actually like Anthony Moore.” Tony admitted. He liked being someone who James could love. He liked being who he was now. 

“You can’t just stop being yourself because you’ve changed, Tony.” Pepper said sharply. “Tony Stark is you, with all the bad parts and all the wonderful parts too. I saw that a long time ago, I love Tony Stark, flaws and all.” 

“No one else does.” Tony muttered. “Me included.” He added with a sigh. Pepper scowled at him. 

“It’s time for you to get over the self-loathing, Tony.” She said. “Go write your statement and I’ll look it over. And next time, talk to me, Tony. I have to know what you’re up to or I can’t help you.” Tony nodded and sighed. He offered his hands out to Pepper. She let him pull her into a hug. 

“I owe you and Rhodey absolutely everything.” He told her affectionately. She was one of his best, and only, friends. She nodded and patted him on the cheek. 

“You’d better remember it.” She told him. Then, she turned away primly. He chuckled and headed to his room. He owed Pepper for keeping him alive through all the years, making sure he ate, and actually did his job, and took the occasional shower. She took care of him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky get's a new assignment at work and heads out of town

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been a while since my last update, college just started back up, I've got a bunch of different things to write and read, including a research presentation (fml), and my beta reader is busy too. As such this chapter is unbetaed, I went over it several times though and I hope it's okay. I hate posting unbetaed things when I'm filling a request but I wanted to update to remind y'all I'm not dead or quitting. If you see any discrepancies/errors call me out in a comment.

Bucky took the dogs home and put his arm back on. Then he went back to work. He had things to do. 

“You hear about the latest Iron Man attack?” He asked Steve when he got into the offices. He always thought it was silly that they had offices. Like they were some sort of team of accountants rather than superheros. 

“I did, I wasn’t sure you would have, since you were busy.” Steve teased. Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“Just because I have a boyfriend doesn’t mean I don’t keep up with things. I was watching the news at his place this morning.” He said. “He’s seemed to think maybe Tony Stark deserves whatever he gets.” 

“Well before six months ago I might have agreed.” Steve muttered. “The guy was an ass, but, he’s gotten better from what I hear. He has a charity for refugees, hasn’t done anything despicable since the kidnapping. You hear he’s auctioning off half of his own private art collection for charity? It seems like he’s making amends. Meanwhile this shmuck is trying to kill his company. Anyway a crime is a crime, even if it’s committed against an asshole.”

“That’s what I told him. Anyway I think he’s just jealous of Stark’s tech, and the Iron Man tech.” Bucky said. “Anyway has this become our problem yet?” He asked. 

“It’s your problem.” Steve said, handing him a file. “That’s everything we know and it’s not much. It hasn’t hurt anyone yet so we’re not diverting many resources. It’s just yours until we know more.”

“Really?” Bucky asked. He hadn’t had a solo mission since he joined the Avengers. He knew that Steve trusted him but they usually worked in teams anyway, and Bucky didn’t always trust himself. This was new. 

“If that’s okay with you,” Steve told him, “I want you to be comfortable but Natasha asked for my help with something, and I figured you could handle starting this one on your own.” Bucky smiled. Steve had a habit of pushing him, he always had, but Bucky was always better for it. If Steve thought he was ready for this, then he was ready for it. It would be good for him. 

“Yeah. I’ll do my best.” Bucky agreed. He took the file and retreated to his desk. It was relatively impersonal. Even after all the time he had spent working with Steve he wasn’t sure how he felt about having a desk. Steve always reminded him that not every day could be fighting off alien invasions; most days they had smaller jobs to do, and paperwork. Somehow, despite being a highly specialized group of superheroes, they had paperwork, Bucky would never understand. 

He opened the folder and started flipping through it. The reports on the Iron Man attacks were depressingly sparse. He flew into the compounds of the factories, without triggering any alarms. He was never spotted coming or going, it was like he knew ahead of time where every single camera was. The guards were drugged and then dragged out of range of any explosions. Then the Iron Man flew up above the factories and laid waste to them. No one had identified any scraps of weaponry that wasn’t stark tech in the wreckage so they couldn’t tell where the tech came from. Which either meant he was lucky, or he was turning Stark tech against Stark. It was more likely that he was just lucky, the factories were huge it was hard to do a thorough search. Bucky read the file through a few times and then stood with a sigh. He had to start somewhere. He stopped by Steve’s office. 

“I’m gonna head out to Ohio and see if I can find anything at the sight of the most recent bombing. Can you look after the dogs for a day or two?” he asked. Steve nodded. 

“Yup, no worries. What’re you going to tell Anthony?” He asked. Bucky sighed. The truth was he didn’t know what he was going to tell Anthony. He had made a variety of excuses throughout their relationship. He was running out of decent reasons to run off without warning. 

“I’ll come up with something.” Bucky told Steve. His friend nodded. 

“I’m sure you will, this time.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Bucky demanded. Steve shrugged. 

“Just that I don’t see why you can’t tell him.” He muttered. Bucky scowled. Steve was like a dog with a bone sometimes. Actually, he was worse, Ace always dropped a toy if Bucky told him to, no matter how badly he wanted it. Dogs could be trained, Steve was impossible. 

“Not everyone has a pristine track record like you, Steve.” He said. “Some of us were soviet assassins for a few decades and don’t want people to know about it.” Steve sighed and looked down. 

“Buck, I’m sorry I-” 

“It’s fine, look I ordered up a quinjet, I’ve got to go.” Bucky told him. Steve nodded. 

“Take care of yourself, call me if you need me.” 

“I’m sure I’ll be in great danger in Ohio.” Bucky teased. “Good luck with Nat.” 

“Thanks, I have a feeling I’ll need it.” Steve laughed. Bucky waved him off and headed out. 

The flight to Ohio wasn’t awful. It gave him plenty of time to try to think up an excuse for his boyfriend. When he landed his phone alerted him to a new development on the Iron Man case. For a moment he was sure that he was about to open a picture of another ruined factory, but it wasn’t that. Tony Stark had released a statement. He scrolled through the useless article to the actual quote. 

“I am deeply disturbed by the actions of the criminal responsible for the destruction of Stark Enterprises property. I hope that he is brought to justice quickly. I am just eternally grateful that no one has been hurt in defense of those weapons. Human lives are infinitely more important than weapons that take them. I wish I had learned that sooner. I just hope that those responsible are brought to justice before anyone does get hurt. I would like to extend my gratitude to all those people who are trying to bring this criminal to justice.”

Bucky studied the words carefully. It was an appropriate response by the crimes. The worry over his employees, and well wishes towards the police were to be expected. It felt odd though. Stark clearly had regrets about his former work, he had proven as much with the press conference when he tried to stop his company from making weapons. Bucky frowned at his phone. He was going to have to look ino Tony Stark himself though he doubted he had anything to do with it. First things first, he needed to look at the blast sight. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony hated it when James left the city. His work occasionally called him out of town. He was, more or less, a dog whisperer of sorts. James always laughed when Tony used that phrase but he was. Sometimes people called him up with reports of unruly dogs they thought they might have to put down if they didn’t do something soon. James usually sent Tony pictures of his canine clientele. According to James they were all good dogs, they were just being treated wrong, or were trained wrong.

“Anthony?” James asked when he answered his phone. 

“I just wanted to call and check in on how you’re doing, hear your voice, tell me I miss you.” Tony said with a smile. 

“Yeah?” James asked. “I miss you too, I’ve got a border collie here that decided she wants to herd the children, and if they don’t listen she gets nippy. They have toddlers and they’re worried, he has a friend who is a former client of mine.” 

“Good luck with that.” Tony told him. “Do you know how long it will take?” He asked. He was busy in his workshop fiddling with the suit. The stabilizers needed adjustmenting. With no desire to think up new inventions for the company Tony was always busy messing around with his suit and his arc reactor. He had made a sheet of special prosthetic skin to hide the reactor when he was with James. It worked surprisingly well. 

“Thanks darling, I really have to go though.” James told him. Tony sighed. 

“Okay, I love you.” He murmured. 

“Love you too, I’ll see you soon.” James told him. Tony hung up and decided that he might as well spend the time he had to himself planning his next mission. He called Pepper down to his workshop to help him with it. She insisted on being involved and she was horrendously clever. He would never admit how glad he was to have her help. He was sure he would have messed up the statement if she hadn’t edited it. He hoped it was enough to get everyone to stop bothering him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even if you don't see any errors feel free to drop me a comment and tell me if you're enjoying the fic!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky investigates the recent Iron Man attack, and starts to figure some shit out

Bucky didn’t find any traces of anything even close to helpful at the site of the factory. It had been completely destroyed. He checked out the shed where all the guards had been stashed. He couldn’t find anything there either, it was maddening. The shed was just beyond the blast radius. Whoever had been in charge of blowing up the factory either knew exactly how big of an explosion there would be, or had just gambled on it being far enough. The saboteur would have had to know the exact contents of the factory to know how big the explosion would be, though. Either he was up against a genius who had quickly surveyed the contents of the factory and somehow calculated things quickly, or a reckless man who only gave a cursory effort to protect the guards. Despite what it meant for the difficulty of his investigation, Bucky prayed that he was up against a genius. If he was fighting a reckless man he was in trouble, because it meant only luck had stopped people from getting hurt so far. Bucky never liked to rely on luck, especially when lives were at risk.

Bucky spent hours scouring the site with all the tech Shield and the Avengers had to offer him. Nothing turned up, no signs on how what had once been a huge factory had been reduced to rubble. When the light faded Bucky gave up and returned to his Quinjet. He hadn’t gotten himself a hotel. He didn’t see the point in that. He could sleep in the Quinjet just as easily. The things had narrow fold down cots, a decent supply of food, and free wifi, so he was fine. He pulled out a couple protein bars and sat down in the cockpit. He had all the footage and pictures of Iron Man that existed queued up on a tablet. Bucky sat back and watched them, snacking as he did so. None of it was particularly revealing.

After watching all the short clips of footage several times over Bucky decided that the Iron Man had to have a real man inside it. The way the thing moved didn’t look like it was pre-scheduled and automatic, but there was no vantage point from which someone could watch and control it with a remote. It simply made the most sense for there to be someone inside the thing. Besides there wasn’t a practical reason for the thing to be shaped like a person if there wasn’t a person in the thing. Once he had eaten his protein bars and had looked at all the images at least five times. Bucky tossed the tablet aside. The tech on the jet was still running analysis on all of the scans he had taken of the ruins. He didn’t have particularly high hopes but he was going to hang around until it was done anyway. Once it was done he would either go to the next blast site or back to New York. It depended on if he found anything or not.

Bucky leaned back and pulled out his phone. He needed to doctor up some footage of a border collie to show Anthony when he got back. He liked the way Tony smiled when he watched the videos. He managed to change a video he had of himself with Ace, and replace his own dog with a cute looking border collie. Shield had wonderful technology. He saved the video so he could show it to Anthony when he got back. He was already looking forward to it. He thought about calling Anthony back but something was bothering him. Instead, he grabbed his tablet again and looked up Tony Stark.

The first thing that popped up was the story about Stark’s statement. Bucky already had it memorized. He scrolled past it looking for something else, anything that stood out. Something about Tony Stark was bothering him, and he had learned to trust his instincts. He pulled up an article about the press conference that Stark had called right after he got back from the middle east. He read the transcript and the article carefully. Stark had tried to shut down the weapons manufacturing, but his own board had shut him out. After he had done so he clicked on the video of the press conference at the bottom of the article. The camera was zoomed in on Tony 

Stark, sitting at the base of a podium eating a hamburger. Bucky knew that face.

His arm was in a sling, his face was bruised. His hair was cropped short and he had the goatee everyone seemed to know Stark for. It was a different look than the one Bucky knew, but he still recognized his boyfriend. Anthony Moore. A quick google search told him that Moore was Tony’s mother’s maiden name. Bucky didn’t realize how tightly he was gripping the tablet in his hands until his metal hand broke the thing in two. He ground the glass to dust between his metallic fingers, furious with himself.

If Bucky was anyone else, he would have recognized Tony Stark immediately, even with the longer hair and without the goatee. He was stupidly famous, only Bucky’s own avoidance of pop culture had left him in the dark. He was a fool, a complete idiot. He had just been telling Steve how Anthony was normal, a normal stable part of his life. He wasn’t normal, he was a damn billionaire and a liar. Anthony, Tony, had been lying to him for nearly six months, and Bucky was enough of a fool to believe him. He was telling the jet to fly him back to New York before he knew what was happening.

The hours between takeoff and landing felt like an eternity in hell to Bucky. For the first half of the flight he was furious, with himself, and with Anthony. He wanted to wring his neck for lying. Of course Bucky wasn’t being exactly honest either. He couldn’t understand why Anthony would lie though. Bucky was hiding the fact that he had once been a soviet assassin, even if he was a hero now, but Anthony was hiding the fact that he was a billionaire. Then he remembered what Anthony said about Tony Stark. Anthony had said that Tony Stark was a fuck up, and a dick. He had sounded truly angry.

For the second half of the flight Bucky was worried. Anthony, Tony, had been through some rough shit. He had been kidnapped, injured, kept captive for weeks. He had barely escaped and had been pretty banged up when he came back. He had seen people killed when he was kidnapped, and before that he had been a civilian. He had come back and tried to stop producing things that hurt people, but he failed. After he had failed to stop weapons production, Tony had disappeared from the public eye. He started charities, and according to Anthony, didn’t think they were enough. He had gone underground and started going by a different name.

As soon as he landed at the base he got out of the Quinjet and went straight to the garage. He hopped into his car and drove to Stark’s place There wasn’t much traffic even for downtown, but it was something like two in the morning. Bucky didn’t care. He had changed into street clothes in the jet and taken the metal arm off. He had locked it in the trunk of his car. He felt slightly bad about continuing to lie to Anthony, but he still… didn’t want to give up on the opportunity to be just James.

The door to Stark’s building was locked so Bucky knocked on the door. The security guard tried to wave him off but Bucky refused to leave. Finally, the guy let him in.

“I’m not sure what you’re doing here, but you need to go.” The man told him. Bucky shook his head.

“I need to see Mr. Stark.” He said. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t just calling Anthony. Then again, he didn’t want to have this conversation anything but face to face. He needed to see Anthony’s face.

“Mr Stark is asleep.” The security guard said. Bucky glanced at the clock and chuckled.

“No chance. Your boss is an insomniac.” He said. “Call him please, tell him James is downstairs and he has some questions.” The security guard frowned but retreated to his desk. He motioned for Bucky to stay where he was and picked up the phone on his desk. It was even red. It rang for a while.

“I’m sorry to bother you Mr. Stark but there is a man down here demanding to see you… He said to tell you James has some questions for you… He’s got long dark brown hair, only one arm, tall, square face… yes, yes Mr. Stark. Right away Mr. Stark.” The security guard hung up and stood back up.

“Right this way, Sir.” He waved Bucky forwards. He escorted him past the main elevator bank to a different elevator that must have been Tony’s private elevator. The doors dinged open without them pressing a button, and closed automatically after Bucky stepped in. The elevator had no buttons, it just shot upward. Bucky rolled his eyes at the showy tech.

When he stepped off the elevator Anthony was there. He was wearing a black tank top and sweatpants, arms covered in grease. There was an unfamiliar circle of light glowing underneath his shirt in the center of his chest, but besides that he looked like Bucky’s familiar, gorgeous boyfriend. Only he looked terrified instead of smiling the way he normally did when he saw Bucky.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Tony talk... and then fight (verbally not physically)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys this gets a bit angsty, I'm sorry but it couldn't be helped. I swear to you I'm going to fix it.

“James, I am so sorry.” Tony said as soon as James was standing in front of him. 

“You lied to me.” James observed. Tony nodded. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go on this long. I meant to tell you earlier, I really did, I just got carried away. I honestly thought you would figure out who I was earlier when it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but you didn’t and I got used to the way we were, and then I’d been lying for too long.” He was babbling. “I didn’t want you to be angry with me, because I love you so damn much, and I just was so happy being Anthony Moore with you.”

“Why though, Anthony? Why did you start all of this by lying to me? You’re Tony Stark, anyone else would be proud of that.” Bucky pointed out. Tony sighed and shook his head helplessly

“I am proud of it… or I was… but after everything I’m not anymore. When you didn’t recognize me when I first met, I just went with it. It was a chance to be someone with less shit on his shoulders. No kidnapping, no pressure from the board, no Iron Man out to get my company, no history as a complete fucking asshole, no blood on my hands from being a weapons dealer, I was just me… and you actually liked me. I just couldn’t give it up. Or maybe I was just afraid to.” It was true, well mostly true. Tony was still lying a bit, about Iron Man. He would have trusted James with the truth of Iron Man, but he didn’t think his boyfriend deserved to get dragged into being involved. If James was still his boyfriend. He didn’t know. Everything was a mess.

“Maybe we can sit down to talk?” James suggested.Tony nodded He had forgotten they were still in the doorway of his apartment. 

“Oh, right, I’m sorry, come in, please.” He said waving him along. He led the way into his huge living room and sat down on the couch, feeling self conscious. James sat down on the same couch but a few cushions away. 

“You’re welcome here anytime.” Tony added.

“Thank you.” James murmured. He was quiet for a long time. Tony forced himself to be silent, waiting for him to say something.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked at last. Tony couldn’t contain his surprise. 

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“At first when I found out, I was angry… but I had a long trip back and on the way I started thinking. I started thinking about why you would lie to me. I started thinking about what you’ve said to me about yourself, about everything you’ve said, and I started to worry instead. You went through hell about half a year ago, and the way you talked about Tony Stark before, about yourself, it wasn’t good.” James confessed. 

“You found out that I’ve been lying to you for months and you’re worried about me?” Tony asked incredulously. He didn’t know how he had ever been lucky enough to have James.

“Oh, I’m still sort of pissed, and I’m not sure where we stand now, but yeah, more than anything I am worried about you.” James admitted. “So are you okay?” He asked again. Tony sighed, head falling into his hands, staring at the floor. 

“Of course I’m not okay.” He admitted. “I’m a mess of a person James. I hate who I was, but I don’t know if I can ever make up for it. My board of directors shut me out, my company is a mess, I’ve got shrapnel in my chest and an electromagnet embedded in me to keep it out of my heart, and every time I do manage to fall asleep, which I’ve never been good at in the first place, I see dead bodies, torn apart by war, weapons. The type of weapons I make did that.” 

“That’s why you tried to stop weapons manufacturing isn’t it? Whatever you saw over there made you try to stop it.” James asked. Tony nodded. 

“Yes,” he agreed, “My dad made his fortune off weapons, he did other stuff but that was the money. So when I inherited, I did the same. It was my job, design new weapons, keep the company running. I didn’t really think about it. Then I saw up close and personal what weapons like the ones I make do, and I… I don’t want to be responsible for all of it, for all the death. I don’t want more of it to happen. I guess that’s why I don’t really care all that much that this Iron thing is fucking up my factories. I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.” 

“I am sorry,” James said, and he sounded like he meant it, “I know what it feels like… to know you were a part of something evil, something that got people hurt, and killed.” Tony stared at him in alarm. His voice wasn’t just sympathetic it was downright anguished. He looked like he was about to say something else but couldn’t find the words

“Sir?” Jarvis made them both jump. 

“Not now, Jay, I’m busy.” Tony snapped.

“Sir, I really think you ought to-”

“Shut up Jarvis, that’s an order.” Tony snapped. When he looked back at James he was shifting uncomfortably like he didn’t want to be there. He wouldn’t look at Tony.

“Are you alright?” Tony asked.

“No, I mean yeah, I- this was a mistake, I should go. I didn’t think this through- I should really go.” James stammered starting to get up. 

“Woah, hey, slow down!” Tony yelped, reaching a hand out for his arm, James flinched away and Tony’s heart tore itself out of his chest. James stood up and Tony leapt to his feet to stand between him and the door.

“I’m sorry, just don’t go yet alright. Sit for a beat or two, calm down. If you don’t want to be with me anymore, if you never want to see me again, that’s your decision, but don’t run off into the night like that. I’m not the best guy, I know that, but even I am not going to let you run off looking about two seconds away from a panic attack.” Tony protested. 

“I need time to think, I need to get out of here.” James told him. 

“James, slow down and talk to me, please sweetheart.” Tony pleaded. 

“Tony, you need to get out of my way.” James said, but he didn’t sound angry, he sounded desperate. 

“Sir, I would advise you move.” Jarvis said. 

“Jay, I told you to shut up,” Tony snapped, surprised that Jarvis had broken protocol. James tried to step around him while he was distracted but Tony stepped back, still in his way. He didn’t know what was going on but James didn’t seem like himself, he looked wild and upset, and Tony didn’t think that it was about his lies. He had been talking about his time as a soldier and now he was losing it. If Tony thought he really just wanted to get out because he was upset over them he would have let him go, but that wasn’t what was happening. 

“Sergeant Barnes, if you continue to act erratically I will summon security.” Jarvis warned. The name made both of the men freeze. 

“What did you call him, Jarvis?” Tony demanded. 

“His name is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, member of the howling commandos before he was kidnapped and presumed dead. He is now a member of the Avengers team.” Jarvis reported. He didn’t say the name ‘winter soldier’ but Tony heard it implied anyway. “I scanned his face when he came into the apartment, as you’ve given me the authority to do.” Jarvis added. 

James had gone completely still and was staring at the floor. Tony stared at him, studying his face like it would tell him something new, as if he didn’t already have it memorized. He had never known. He felt like a complete fool for a few moments, and then he got angry. 

“You bastard!” He snapped. “You come here, all sanctimonious, upset with me for lying about who I am when you’ve been lying about who you are this whole time too?!” 

“Anthony, I didn’t mean for this to happen either okay?” James said. 

“Seriously, that’s your defense. You came here to accuse me of lying to you, but you just figure I have to come clean while you get to keep lying? When we’ve got the exact same reasons too?” Tony demanded. 

“The same?” James asked incredulously. Except he wasn’t just James, he went by Bucky usually, Tony remembered. 

“Yeah the same, we’re both hiding from our pasts! From being who we were, who we are.” Tony said. Bucky shook his head. 

“Bullshit!” He snapped. “I kept who I was a secret because I was a brainwashed soviet assassin. I killed people, and I got frozen for years on end. They tried to make me kill my best friend, and I almost did. That’s my bullshit, that’s what I’m hiding from. You’re hiding from being a billionaire war profiteer.” 

“I’ve gotten more people killed than you ever have! So don’t act like our levels of fucked up are so different.” Tony snapped back, and he didn’t know what hurt worse, what James had said or what he had said. 

“We may both have death tolls but we are different,” Bucky hissed, “I didn’t have a damn choice in what I did. I was brainwashed. You did your shit yourself. You built something huge and evil and you’re too scared to own up to your shitty decisions that got people killed.” Tony couldn’t stop himself from actually flinching at that. He turned and walked away a couple steps, not able to look at James. 

“Get the fuck out of my building.” He whispered. 

“Oh, now you want me to go?” Bucky asked. 

“Leave.” Tony growled through gritted teeth. He didn’t turn to look as James stormed out and slammed the door behind him. Tony sank to the ground in the middle of his living room, shoulders shaking with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's worth saying that obviously they don't mean all the nasty shit they're hurling at each other, and I don't either. I don't want anyone to be over here thinking I think any of this or anything, I am a firm supporter of both characters. People say bad things when they are upset, that's this chapter. That's all.
> 
> Sorry for the disclaimer I just know how intense Marvel fans can get over people showing any of their favorite characters as flawed, I've seen some seriously horrible crap thrown at people over these fictional characters and I am scared


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky reflects on his fight with Tony, talks to Steve about it, and then gets a breakthrough on the Iron Man case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry it's been a while since the last update there's been a lot going on. But this chapter is several times longer than all the others so there's that. I hope you enjoy it.

Bucky knew he had stepped over a line as soon as he had said it. He hadn’t meant it. He might not know him as Tony, but Anthony was a good man. The problem was that Anthony and Tony were the same guy. He had known it before he had gone over to see him. That was the whole point, except he hadn’t really processed what it meant. He had thought about Anthony in context of him being Tony Stark, but hadn’t really thought about what he knew about Tony Stark outside of the basics. He hadn’t thought about the details. He hadn’t thought about the past. Tony Stark wasn’t just a person that existed in a vacuum though, he had a history, had a family.

Bucky hadn’t thought about everything that Anthony being Tony Stark meant until he heard Jarvis’ voice, like it had made everything real. Tony was Howard Stark’s son. Howard, who had known Bucky and Steve. Howard who had died in a car crash with his wife Maria as far as the entire world knew. Howard, whose face Bucky still remembered so clearly from the night he killed them both. That was the real curse of having been the Winter Soldier, he remembered all of it. He hadn’t remembered any of his past while he was the Soldier. Now that he wasn’t anymore he remembered all of his past, including being the Soldier. He had killed Tony’s parents. He had ruined the man’s damn life, and now he had just called him a coward and a murderer. 

Bucky hadn’t meant to hurt Tony when he went over there. It was just that when he had realized everything that Anthony being Tony meant, he had to escape. Only Tony had been being sweet, worrying about him, and Bucky had had to get out before he told Tony the truth and made everything worse. Only he hadn’t been able to just leave, Tony had figured out who he was. He had every right to be angry, he really did, but his anger and Bucky’s own desperation had made Bucky angry. He didn’t know how it all went so wrong. He kept playing it out in his head as he went home but he still couldn’t figure out how everything had shifted and dissolved into them lashing out at each other so quickly. 

Bucky trooped up to his apartment with a grimace. His metal arm stuffed into the bag slung over his shoulder with the rest of his shit. He didn’t want to deal with it. When he reached his door he saw that it was unlocked, but he didn’t worry, the dogs weren’t losing it, which meant it was just Steve. Of course Steve had come to check on him after he got back from being out there alone. He hesitated outside the apartment, knowing he had to tell Steve the truth, and not wanting to face the reality of what he had done. He couldn’t stand there forever though. He swung open the door and walked in. 

The dogs, who had been lying on the couch half on top of Steve, who was sitting there, immediately jumped up and ran over to him. Delilah yipped in greeting. Bucky dropped his bag by the door, arm and all, and crouched to say hello to both of them. He pet Ace and then scooped Delilah up into his arm and held her close as he slumped onto the couch next to Steve. Ace followed him and laid his head on Bucky’s lap. Bucky smiled a little, taking comfort in the love of his pets.

“What on Earth happened?” Steve asked him. Bucky was sure he looked like a mess. His eyes were red from crying on the way home, and he probably looked like a complete mess. “It isn’t about the Iron Man is it?” He asked, sounding doubtful. Bucky shook his head. 

“No, Anthony.” He said. Steve frowned. 

“What’s wrong? Is he okay?” 

“No, I mean like physically, yeah, mostly. Emotionally he’s fucked up and I think he hates me.” Bucky answered. Steve just waited for a better explanation. “Anthony Moore isn’t his real name. His last name is Stark, he’s Tony Stark.” Bucky muttered. 

“What? Really?” He demanded. Bucky nodded. 

“Yup, he’s been lying to me about it because he’s ashamed… he’s really fucked up over what happened to him in Afghanistan and the fact that his company kills people. He feels responsible for all of it. So he just sort of ran away, decided to be someone else.” Bucky said. 

“Wow, you two have more in common than previously thought.” Steve muttered. Bucky laughed bitterly. 

“Yeah, about that…” He told Steve all of the details of the conversation, what Tony had found out, what Tony had said, what he had said in return. Steve listened with wide eyes and a sad sympathetic face. 

“Oh Bucky, why? Why did you say that to him?” He asked, “you don’t believe that do you?” 

“I mean not really,” Bucky muttered, “he ended up with this company relying on him when he was really young because his parents died, and he just did what everyone expected of him. It wasn’t his idea to make weapons, Howard started that. He did do it though, I mean there’s a lot on his head… but… no I get why he’s upset, I don’t really blame him.” That was the horrible thing. He had lashed out with what he knew would hurt the most, what would make Tony hate him. 

“Then why? I mean if you were trying to hurt him and make him hate you you did a great job.” Steve said.

“I guess I wanted him to hate me for that.” Bucky said, “instead of for who I am, and what I’ve done.” 

“Bucky, the Soldier’s actions have never been your fault, you know that.” Steve said. Bucky shook his head, not to contradict Steve exactly, just helplessly. Tears welled up in his eyes and he couldn’t stop them from falling. He couldn’t look at Steve so he looked down at Delilah on his lap, stroking her silky soft ears. 

“I killed his parents Steve.” he whispered, “Howard and Maria’s death wasn’t an accident, it was an assassination made to look like an accident. Howard had a version of your serum, the soviets wanted it so they sent me. I caused the crash, and they weren’t dead, so I went to them, and I did it…” he choked on the memory slightly, “Howard recognized me, but I didn’t know him. I just, completed my mission, and his mother, Maria, it was just because there couldn’t be a witness.” He confessed. 

“Oh, Bucky, I’m so sorry.” Steve said. Bucky looked up at him. 

“I tell you I killed one of your friends and you say your sorry?!” He demanded. 

“You didn’t do it, they used your body to do it.” Steve said, “the Soldier did it.” 

“I am the Soldier, Steve, I mean, I’m not but I was. I remember it okay? I remember the way Howard looked. I remember the feeling of choking the life out of Maria.” Bucky insisted. “Whether I meant to or not, I did that, if it wasn’t for me, Anthony’s parents would still be alive. I was there and I was thinking about it, and I almost told him. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hurt him like that, couldn’t bear to see him hate me for it.” 

“So instead of possibly hurting him by telling him the truth, you hurt him by attacking his biggest weak spot?” Steve asked. 

“Possibly?” Bucky asked, choosing to focus on one thing at a time. 

“He might be glad to know the truth of how his parents died. I’m not saying that he wouldn’t hate you for it, but…” Steve shrugged. 

“Thank you, Captain Helpful.” Bucky muttered. “Look it doesn’t matter, he’s got his own support system right, he’s rich, he’s famous, he’ll get over it, and move on. Meanwhile I’ll make an appointment with my therapist and do my job, which should be the important thing here anyway.” 

“What you’re just going to get over him?” Steve asked, clearly doubtful. 

“I said he’d get over me,” Bucky muttered, and wasn’t that the kicker. Bucky already knew he wasn’t going to get over Anthony, not quickly, possibly not ever. Steve clearly read as much from his expression. 

“Buck, you love him. I mean, I’ve never seen you love anyone this way.” He pointed out. 

“Your point?” Bucky asked. Steve sighed. 

“I don’t know, just maybe don’t completely give up is all I’m saying.” He said gently, patting Bucky on the shoulder. 

“I think I burned my bridges, Stevie.” Bucky told him, wishing it wasn’t true.

“Why don’t you get some sleep,” Steve told him, “I’ll crash here for the night to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. Things will look better in the morning.” He promised. Bucky sighed and nodded. He had no better ideas. He got up, stumbled to his room and collapsed onto his bed. The dogs joined him. When Bucky fell asleep he had nightmares about Anthony and Howard. 

He was woken up far too early by Steve shaking his shoulder. He shot awake, noticing Steve, and the dawn light. He grimaced. 

“I thought you wanted me to be in a better mood.” He muttered. Steve sighed. 

“Sorry, but you’ve got work to do, the Iron Man struck again last night, a factory right outside the city.” Steve told him. Bucky groaned irritably. 

“Great, so I have another ruined Factory to visit with no helpful footage to look over.” He grumbled. Steve shook his head. 

“I wouldn’t have woken you up for that. No, there was a witness this time, a homeless kid who had snuck past the fence and was hiding out in a shed on the property. He was hurt in the blast. 

“What?” Bucky asked, suddenly fully awake. He pushed himself up and started getting dressed. “Is he alright? Where is he? Can I talk to him?” He asked rapid pace. He had a lead, an actual lead. 

“He is okay, he was hit by shrapnel flung out by the blast. One piece hit him in the right side, gave him a nasty cut and a few broken ribs but he avoided a punctured lung. Another hit him in the right leg, broke his femur.” Steve answered, “he’s in the General City Hospital, he should make a full recovery, but you haven’t let me get to the best part.” He said. 

“What’s the best part? He saw the Iron Man?” Bucky asked. 

“He talked to him, them, whatever it is. The Iron Man is the one who brought him to the hospital. They picked him up, carried him to the hospital roof, the hospital got a call from an anonymous man to say there was an injured man on the roof, must have been the Iron Man, and he stayed with the victim right until the door opened and then flew off. All together it was probably only ten minutes between the guy getting hurt, and him being treated.” Steve explained. Bucky grinned. This was the best breakthrough he could hope for. 

“We were contacted by the hospital because we put it out to people who might have interactions with him, that we’re investigating the Iron Man. This is your case, your lead, the cops say we’ve got this because the guy seems like a supervillain or some shit.” 

“Thank you!” Bucky said, it felt like a huge opportunity, he had a chance to solve his case, “you coming with me? Let’s go.”

“Yup, I already took the dogs out.” Steve said, “Let’s go.” Bucky had gotten dressed as Steve explained. He reattached his metal arm before they left. He drove them to the hospital quickly. They were in plain clothes but everyone recognized Steve Rogers, and the metal arm made Bucky very obvious. A nurse was immediately assigned to guide them up to the private room where the guy was. Bucky asked her questions as they walked. 

“Did anyone else see the Iron Man?” He asked. She shook her head. 

“Nurse Walters was the first out the door, but she only saw a streak of metal and light he flew off that fast.” She answered. 

“And this guy, Kyle Woodley, he was homeless right? How is he paying for his care? How is he paying for a private room?” He asked. 

“She isn’t paying for anything.” The nurse said emphatically, “We’re obligated to do the basics but before we could even think about how she’d pay for it, we got a call from Mr Stark. We thought he might be upset, seeing as Miss Woodley broke onto his property, that he might want to press charges, but he didn’t. Mr Stark called to say he heard that Miss Woodley had been hurt because of the whole Iron Man thing, and he felt so bad. He promised he would pay for everything and asked us to put Miss Woodley in a private room, spare no expense, he said.” She told him. Of course Tony was involved, his factories were being blown up and someone had gotten hurt. Of course Tony would feel horrendously guilty about the whole thing.

“Really? How did Mr Stark find out?” He asked, wondering how Tony had managed to find out before him. She shrugged. 

“I don’t know, I assume he knew because it was his own factory that got blown up after all. Billionaires probably have their own way of finding things out anyway.” She said. He nodded. She stopped in front of a door which she knocked upon. 

“Miss Woodley, the Avengers’ team is here to see you.” She announced as she opened the door. Woodley couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old. She was rail thin, with scruffy brown hair and a narrow angular face. 

“Come in,” she said quietly, “thank you Nurse Hester.” she added. The nurse nodded and left,

“What’s your name?” Bucky asked, sitting down in a chair next to the bed. He didn’t want to call her Kyle, he had a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate it. 

“Kylie Woodley,” She answered, “they might have told you something else but it’s Kylie.” She murmured. 

“Of course, no worries,” Bucky told her, “Can I call you Kylie or do you prefer Miss Woodley?” He asked

“Kylie is fine.” She told him. She spoke very quietly, probably to stop from hurting her ribs.

“Alright, I’ve got a couple questions for you, Kylie, would you be willing to answer them?” 

“You’re trying to catch him, the Iron Man.” She whispered. He nodded.

“He’s a criminal, he’s doing something wrong, and if I don’t stop him, more people might get hurt.” He agreed. 

“I don’t want you to catch him,” Kylie whispered, “he saved my life. But I’ll answer your questions because I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” 

“Thank you.” Bucky told her. “Let’s start easy, why were you on Stark Enterprises property?” he asked.

“I’m homeless, been on the streets for about seven months now. I asked my parents to call me Kylie, and they decided they’d rather never speak to me again.” She said bitterly. Bucky grimaced. 

“I’m sorry, Kylie, that’s horrible,” he said, “but I meant why camp out in the shed of a Stark Enterprises Factory? His security isn’t minimal. How did you get in? Why go to all the effort.” 

“I want to be an engineer.” Kylie said, “or I used to want to be an engineer. I already graduated high school, at sixteen. I’ve been hoping to go to college but I don’t have the money. So I decided to squat there because... well because it’s Stark Enterprises you know? I snuck into the factory sometimes just to look at what they were making, to learn you know? Anyway, I’m clever, that’s how I got past the security.” She told him. 

“And can you describe what happened last night?” Bucky asked. She nodded. 

“I was asleep in my shed, it’s not much you know, just a maintenance shed, but it’s a roof. Anyway, I was asleep but I thought I heard a weird nose, like a plane but not like a plane. So I got up and went outside to look. Next thing I know the entire factory was a fucking ball of flames and I’ve got bits of metal flying at me,” she looked sort of in awe, as if it had been beautiful instead of frightening, “I get hit by shrapnel and it hurt like fucking hell, and I’m on the ground, the factory is still burning so I figure that people will come soon, but I’m not too close, and around back you know? So as fast as I was bleeding I figured I was a goner. Then this golden and red metal man comes streaking through the air and lands right in front of me.” 

“What did he look like?” Bucky asked. She waved a hand at a piece of paper on the bedside table. 

“I drew him earlier, before you showed up.” She said. Bucky picked up the drawing and studied it. It was a detailed sketch of the Iron Man, a robotic figure of a man. Some of the tech was in higher detail. Bucky took a picture of it with his phone so he could return the paper to her. 

“Thank you.” He said, “That helps. So when he landed in front of you did he say anything?” He asked. 

“Yeah, he said a lot. I think he was sort of freaking out.” Kylie agreed. “As soon as he landed he started talking.” 

“Can you repeat what he said as best as you can remember? Every detail helps.” Bucky said hopefully. 

“He said ‘Oh god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were here. My scans didn’t pick you up this far out. Oh fucking hell, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?’” Kylie recited, “And I said, ‘do I look okay?’ it hadn’t really hit me, all the pain because I was in shock so I was still talking okay. He said ‘No, no I’m sorry, I’m gonna help, I promise, you’re gonna be alright. Everything’s going to be alright.’ and then he picked me up.” She frowned for a moment, thinking. 

“He had a really deep voice you know, like it came out all robotic-y and shit because of the suit, but it sounded like a man speaking through a machine you know? And before he picked me up he was pacing and waving his hands like he was freaking out.” 

“So you think it’s a suit and that there’s a real person in there?” Bucky asked. Kylie nodded. 

“Yeah, I do. I mean you don’t program robots to have panic attacks right? And just something about the way he talked. It sounded like he was there,” she agreed, 

“Anyway, he picked me up and I screamed because fucking ow, even though he was obviously trying to be gentle, and he said ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m gonna make this right I swear. I’m so sorry. God I’m such a fucking idiot, this was stupid.’ He took off then and we were flying, which was awesome. So I asked him, ‘why the hell are you blowing up Stark Enterprises anyway? Do you hate Tony Stark or Something?’ because I didn’t want to think about the pain, and how many chances do you get to talk to a terrorist. He didn’t answer for a while and I was worried that he was angry, but then he said ‘I’m doing this because someone has to, someone has to stop Stark Enterprises from making weapons and selling them to anyone and everyone. People are dying and I have to stop it.’ He sounded like he really really meant it to.” She said softly and fell silent for a moment. Bucky waited and then prompted a little. 

“Was that all?” He asked. 

“Oh, no, sorry. I just sort of get it you know? But I guess blowing shit up isn’t helping things. So I asked, ‘Why are you the one who has to stop it?’ and he laughed but it wasn’t like a happy laugh it was a really sad laugh. He said ‘Because I know the truth, the horrible shit that happens, the double dealing, and this is the only way anyone is gonna hear me out,’ and I felt kinda bad for him, he didn’t seem all that bad all things considered, except for the nearly dying part. We were quiet until we got to the hospital. He promised that he was calling help, must be a cellphone somewhere in that suit, not that I heard him make the call. Anyway, we were quiet for a while and I was in a lot of pain, but he was holding my hand in his big metal hand, and it was sweet.” Kylie sighed.

“Then he said, ‘Oh and yes’ and I wasn’t sure he was talking to me at first, and he must have gotten that from me looking at him like he was insane, because he explained ‘You asked if I hated Tony Stark and I forgot to answer. Yes. I do. I probably hate him more than anyone else in the world hates him.’ I was kind of surprised by that and I said so I said, ‘You don’t seem like a bad guy, why would you hate someone so much?’ and he laughed that really sad laugh again, and then he heard the footsteps on the stairs and said he was sorry one last time and he was gone. That’s it.” Kylie said. Bucky had recorded what she said so that he could type it all up later, he was surprised by the details. 

“How did you remember so much? His exact words?” He asked her. She shrugged and then winced. 

“I told you, I’m clever.” She answered. “If you catch him, go easy on him alright? He didn’t really seem like a bad guy at all, just really lost and sort of helpless. He’s trying to help people, and I think he really believes this is his only option.” 

“People who do these sorts of things always think that they’re in the right.” Bucky told her. She rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, whatever. Just, do me a favor, look into Stark Enterprises? There’s got to be a reason this guy believes they’re super evil, he said they were double dealing, and they’re a US defense contractor right? Isn’t that like, treason? If they sell to the enemy too?” She asked. “I mean, Mr Stark seems really nice, he’s taking care of me, but that doesn’t mean the company is good.” 

“We’ll look into it.” Steve promised, the first words he had spoken. He had been standing off to the side, letting Bucky take the lead. Before any of them could say anything else there was a knock on the door. It swung open to reveal Tony Stark. Bucky shot to his feet, anxiously. Tony was dressed to the nines, and looked absolutely fabulous despite being up in the early morning after everything that had happened late the night before. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” Tony said with a grimace, “what are you doing here?” 

“The police force has allowed the Avengers to take point on the Iron Man case, it’s my job to be here. I was interviewing Kylie.” Bucky answered, “What are you doing here?” 

“I came to check on Kylie, she got hurt because this thing is after me. This is my fault, I’m going to do everything I can to fix it.” Tony answered curtly. 

“You don’t have to blame yourself for everything.” Bucky said before he could stop himself. It was just so very Anthony to feel so guilty, and he wished he didn’t. Tony’s face was stony and cold. 

“Oh really? You say that now?” He asked, he turned away from Bucky who didn’t know how to respond to that. Tony looked at Steve. 

“Captain America… my father was obsessed with you, you know?” He asked drily. 

“Howard was a friend.” Steve answered awkwardly, glancing over at Bucky worriedly. 

“Yeah, well hopefully he was a better friend than he was a dad.” Tony told Steve, then turned away from him too. When he faced Kylie his face went soft and kind. 

“Hey, Kylie right? I’m Tony, how are you feeling?” He asked. 

“I’m on painkillers so alright.” She answered, “Thank you for paying for all of this Mr Stark, I don’t know what I would do without your help.” She admitted. 

“I’m glad I can help.” Tony told her, “you don’t worry about any of that. Mostly I just want you to focus on getting better.” 

“Mostly?” She asked, clearly concerned. He smiled. 

“There’s one other thing, part of why I’m here, I thought maybe while you heal up you’d consider an offer.” He said, and if it was anyone else Bucky would be worried about a young woman being so in debt to a rich man used to getting his way, worried that the offer would be something repulsive, but it was Anthony. Tony Stark had a reputation but not for this. “I know you wanted to be an engineer, and you beat my security system, so you’re obviously very smart, so I wanted to offer to send you to school. Any college you want to go to, I’ll cover tuition, housing, food expenses, anything you need.” He told her. 

“Seriously?” Kylie asked. He nodded. 

“Yeah, seriously. You’ve hit some bad times through no fault of your own, but you’re smart, and I think you could do good things, I’m not letting you slip through the cracks when I can help.” Tony told her, “And after you graduate, you have a standing job offer to come work for me, in R&D, meaning I’ll put you in a lab and let you make what you want. Not that you have to work for me. Once you’ve got that degree, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of options.” Kylie had started crying.

“Mr Stark, I can’t thank you enough, I mean, you’re saving my life. I can’t tell you how much this means. I owe you everything.” She said through sniffling. 

“Call me Tony,” He told her, “and you don’t owe me anything except to make a good life for yourself.” He said. 

“Are you sure? I mean is there anything I can do?” She asked. He shook his head and then thought about it for a second. 

“You could throw those two out so we can talk without them looming in the background, and then you can sit with me and tell me about yourself,” Tony told her, “that way i’m not a stranger helping you, I’m a friend doing you a favor.”

“Did you two get everything you needed?” Kylie asked Bucky and Steve. 

“Yes, thank you for talking to us, you’ve been a great help.” Bucky told her, he turned and left before he could get distracted by Tony again. Steve followed him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony talks to Kylie, talks to Bucky briefly, and then talks to Rhodey (meanwhile he really needs to get some sleep)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is still enjoying this, I'm working on it as much as I can what with classes, and original work, and falling into a deep depressive spiral...

Tony was a fucking idiot. He had been so angry and so fucking upset. He and Pepper had been part way through planning the mission for the New York Factory anyway. He had just jumped up the schedule and an eighteen year old kid had gotten hurt because of it. Of course then when he turned up at the hospital James had been there. Not only had James been there, James, Bucky, whatever, was in charge of the investigation into Tony’s fucking crimes. It was like anti-christmas, a day devoted to the world shitting all over Tony Stark. 

The only upside to things was that Kylie seemed like a really great kid. She was wickedly smart, and had a tough spirit, and a good sense of humor. The doctors told Tony she would make a full recovery, and Kylie was already planning out where she would apply to school. She told him about it after she told him everything else about her life so far. 

“Well, I’m an MIT alum, so I’ve got my own bias, but you go where you want.” He told her. She beamed at him. 

“Thank you, again.” She told him. He smiled at her, stupidly glad that he could at least help this one girl. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful and then she asked the exact thing he did not want to answer. 

“Do you have history with Sergeant Barnes?” She asked. He sighed. 

“Of sorts.” He agreed bitterly. She grimaced. 

“Oh, wow, okay. I was just surprised, he seemed like a pretty nice guy, and you’re wonderful and… yeah.” She said awkwardly. He sighed. 

“He’s a good guy, we just have had our… differences.” Tony said at last. 

“Right.” She agreed, she opened her mouth like she was going to say something else but then she yawned. He chuckled. 

“Look, you get some rest, I’ll come back and see you tomorrow, alright?” He asked. She nodded sleepily. 

“Okay, thank you Tony.” She murmured. She was asleep before he had left the room. Tony went home to face Pepper, only Pepper wasn’t there. She had just left a message for him with Jarvis to say that she was sure he was beating himself up enough, and she was busy dealing with responsible shit she wasn’t going to jump on the hating Tony train. Tony almost wished she had joined in, it was nice to have his self loathing justified by the loathing of others sometimes. At least he thought so. 

Tony thought about going to his workshop to distract himself, but then he realized that if he tried to get anything done he was likely to just accidentally blow shit up due to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. He wished Pepper was there to see it, ‘See, I know my limits!’ he bragged to her in his mind as he dragged himself into his room and collapsed into his bed. Before he could even shut his eyes his phone was ringing.

“Who is it?” He asked Jarvis. 

“It’s Sergeant Barnes, Sir.” Jarvis answered, sounding sort of hesitant. Tony grimaced, and threw his hands into the air helplessly. 

“Of course it is.” He agreed, “well this day can’t get worse can it? Might as well put him through.”

“Yes Sir.” Jarvis agreed, and then there was the sound of another person’s breathing coming from the speakers. 

“Hello?” Tony asked. 

“Tony, thank you for answering.” Bucky said, sounding surprised to get Tony instead of a machine. 

“Yeah, well it’s your job to investigate my exploded factory right? Figure the least I can do is answer your calls.” Tony grumbled. 

“Right, that was why I was calling.” Bucky said. 

“Of course it is, why else would you call someone you clearly find so despicable?” Tony muttered. 

“I never said that.” Bucky protested. Tony sighed and wished he hadn’t said anything. 

“Not the point, listen, what do you want?” He asked. 

“I wanted to ask who your enemies are,” Bucky told him, “the Iron Man told Kylie that he hated you more than anyone in the world hated you.” 

“And you’re sure it’s not you?” Tony asked. He heard a hurt offended sound from the other end of the line, “Pretend I didn’t say that.” He added quickly before James could say anything. 

“Look, I’ve got lots of people who hate me.” Tony said more seriously. “Justin Hammer’s my competition, he definitely hates me… um… A lot of women who I’ve slept with and never called…” he was trying not to say ‘Me’ because he might have hated himself but he wasn’t a moron. The last thing he needed was to lead Bucky straight into the realization that he was a ‘terrorist.’ 

“Great, helpful.” Bucky told him sarcastically, “look one other thing, do you know anything about Stark Enterprises selling weapons to other countries, or even, hostile organisations? Because your terrorist seems to think your company is rotten to the core.” 

“So do you,” Tony muttered, “and so do I. Well, not rotten to the core, but all the weapons shit is horrible, but we’ve already discovered I can’t do shit about any of that. They don’t even talk to me about it anymore.” 

“Right, again, not helpful.” Bucky answered. Tony sighed. 

“Listen, I’ve got no proof, but I wouldn’t be shocked. I tried to shut it all down, and couldn’t do that. If you can prove that they are into some fucked up shit, please do it. Take them all down.” He pleaded. 

“That might destroy your entire company.” Bucky pointed out.

“Yeah well, better no company than a company that thrives on blood money.” He muttered, “I know it isn’t your job specifically, but if you can do it anyway, just take the whole fucking thing down.” 

“What about you?” James asked. Tony couldn’t stop thinking of him as James whenever his voice went soft and kind. 

“Nothing you do can hurt me more.” Tony told him, and then hung up before he said anything idiotic. 

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that James was acting like he still cared about Tony. He didn’t. He had made it abundantly clear what he thought about Tony the night before. It wasn’t fair of him to do that and then still talk to Tony like he knew him and cared about him. 

“Are you alright sir?” Jarvis asked. 

“No, Jay, no I’m not.” Tony answered. He wasn’t alright, he was a mess, more so than ever before. He wished he could go back in time to before Bucky had come over. He wished he could redo the whole conversation, not say hateful things, not get angry. No, he wished he could go back and tell James the truth so much sooner. Would it have helped? He didn’t know. Maybe they just would have had this fight all the sooner and Tony would have lost those months with him. He buried his face in a pillow and wished that he could go back and stop himself from ever meeting James Buchanan Barnes and save them both the agony. 

Tony told Jarvis to fill Pepper in on all the details of what had happened to him and then he went to sleep. For once he fell asleep quickly and slept without having nightmares. All it took was pushing himself well past the point of exhaustion. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept.

Tony was woken up by the sound of someone hammering on his front door, and Jarvis’ raised voice. 

“Sir, I’m sorry to wake you but it’s Colonel Rhodes. I told him you shouldn’t be disturbed but you gave him the codes to override me. He insists that he must speak with you.” Jarvis said. Tony sighed and hauled himself out of bed. He was only in his boxers but Rhodey wouldn’t care. He stumbled to the front door, feeling only mildly more alive than he had when he went to sleep. 

“What do you want?” He growled at Rhodey when he opened the door. His best friend pulled him into a hug. 

“I’m worried about you.” He said, holding onto him for a moment and then ushering him through to the living room. Tony followed him into the living room and collapsing into an armchair with a groan. 

“You look like hell.” Rhodey observed. Tony chuckled bitterly. 

“I feel like hell,” he answered, “anyway why are you worried about me? It can’t just be about the New York factory.” He pointed out. 

“Not about the factory no, I got a call about an hour ago from Sergeant James Barnes, one of the Avengers you know, Captain America’s friend.” 

“I’m very familiar with the man. He moonlights as James Rogers.” Tony muttered. 

“James Rogers like your boyfriend?” Rhodey asked in disbelief. Tony nodded

“The very same. He just stole his best friend’s name I guess. He found out who I am because of the Iron Man investigation, came over to confront me about lying, and then I found out who he was because Jarvis scanned his face and ran it through the system. Then we got into a fight and he called me a billionaire war profiteer hiding from the fact that I am responsible for thousands of deaths, and I told him to get the fuck out. So we’ll classify him as an Ex.” Tony explained. 

“Jesus, I’m sorry… although I can’t be surprised, both of you lying about your identities doesn’t make for a solid basis for a relationship.” Rhodey muttered. 

“Yes I’m aware of how fucked up my life is, i don’t need the reminder.” Tony told him, “The real question is what did he want from you?” He asked. 

“He called me to ask if I knew if you had any enemies. He’s investigating the Iron Man, but you know that, and he heard from a witness that the Iron Man person hates you, a lot.” Rhodey said, “he asked me if I knew anyone who would threaten you. I gave him a list of people I know hate you.” Rhodey explained. 

“Good, so… why waking me up?” Tony asked. Rhodey shook his head.

“Because I’m worried about you, you idiot. It was one thing when we thought this guy was just after your weapons, you’re against them too these days so there was little reason for him to dislike you. Now we know he’s doing this because he hates you, he might come for you one of these days. He was in the city as recently as last night. I’m scared for your life.” Rhodey told him. 

“Don’t be.” Tony told him. 

“You’ve always been too casual about danger to your life,” Rhodey snapped, “but I’m not. Especially not after Afghanistan. I’m not leaving you alone until you’ve amped up your security and I’m sure you’re safe.” He said. Tony grimaced. 

“You are a good friend, and I appreciate that, but you really don’t have to,” he said, “I’m safe, I promise.”

“You can’t know that.” Rhodey said. Tony didn’t say anything and Rhodey frowned at him. “Unless you know who it is…” He murmured, realizing slowly. Tony looked down because Rhodey was too good at reading his face. 

“Who is it?” Rhodey asked, “And how do you know he won’t hurt you?” 

“All you need to know is that I’m safe.” Tony told him. 

“No, if you know who it is, you have to say something. He’s dangerous and breaking the law.”

“Fuck laws.” Tony muttered, “I tried the legal way, it didn’t work.” He regretted saying it immediately. 

“What are you saying Tony?” Rhodey asked voice low. Tony sighed and ran his hands through his hair, which was a mess. Then he threw caution to the wind.

“I’m saying that if you want the Iron Man you’ve got him, it’s me, I’m doing it. I couldn’t stop weapons manufacturing as CEO but I can as Iron Man. The company is double dealing, Rhodey, the guys that had me in Afghanistan had my weapons, terrorists have my weapons because my company is selling them. It’s bad enough the people who die because we have them, I’d want to shut it down just for that, but selling to both sides?! It’s not just treasonous it’s a fucking crime against humanity in my books and that’s on me. I may not have been a part of that specifically, but it’s still on me, which is why it’s on me to stop it. I’m not gonna hurt anyone, well I mean when I go overseas and free enslaved villages I hurt the assholes who did that shit, but at my factories I make sure all the guards are safe, I plan ahead so the only things that gets ruined is the factory, the weapons and my stock prices.” Tony said.

“And what about the kid who got hurt last night?” Rhodey asked. 

“I fucked up last night. I wasn’t thinking straight, we hadn’t gotten all the plans in order. I made a mistake because I was sad and angry, it won’t happen again.” Tony promised. 

“Won’t happen again! Tony, none of this should ever happen again!” Rhodey exclaimed, “I can’t let you do this!”

“What are you going to do? You gonna arrest me Rhodey?” Tony asked. “I’m trying to save people’s lives, trying to fix my mistakes. You’re going to arrest me for that?” 

“Jesus, no, Tony, I’m not going to arrest you,” Rhodey said, obviously frustrated, “I’m asking you to stop because you’re going to get yourself hurt. Flying around in a robot suit, blowing things up, you’re going to get yourself killed, either that or you’re going to get yourself caught. You’re labeled as a wanted terrorist for christ sake. The Avengers are after you.”

“I can’t help that.” Tony said with a sigh. 

“Look, I can swear to you that I’ll be careful, and that no one else will get hurt. Pepper and I are trying to take shit apart without violence too, but my own company is surprisingly hard to hack into when I don’t have any power anymore. As soon as we find a way to fix this, it’s over, I swear.” He promised, “But until then, I've got to keep going.”

“Pepper approves of all this?” Rhodey demanded. Tony shrugged. 

“Approves is a strong word. She realized she can’t stop me, unless she rats me out, and she doesn’t want me to go to prison. So she decided as long as this is happening she might as well help, try to stop me from getting caught or dying.” He answered. Rhodey sighed. 

“Fine! Fine! I can’t stop you from blowing up your own shit and I can’t send you to prison.” He admitted. Tony smiled at him. 

“Thanks, and thanks for hopefully throwing Bucky off my scent.” He said. Rhodey sighed.

“Right, I should have known: who hates Tony Stark the most? You, because you are a ridiculous self-loathing asshole.” He muttered. 

“Thanks, that makes me feel good.” Tony told him. Rhodey shook his head.

“Hey, you’re my best friend and I think you’re great, I just know you don’t, which I think is ridiculous.” He said. 

“Yeah whatever.” Tony said, but he smiled at his friend. 

“You know Sergeant Barnes sounded really worried about you?” Rhodey pointed out hesitantly. 

“Doubt it.” Tony said, because he could not handle that. James had made it clear he did not like or respect Tony anymore. Tony just wanted to hate him and move on. He couldn’t handle it if James still cared, that just made it worse. 

“Really, he told me to take care of you,” Rhodey said, “I thought it was just professional concern for a citizen at first but now I wonder if there was something else there.” Tony grimaced.

“Why can’t he just be awful? Why can’t he just hate me so I can hate him?” He demanded, “it would be so much easier that way!”

“Tony, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think any of this is going to be easy.” Rhodey told him sympathetically. He was right of course, Rhodey was always right, things were not easy and they were only going to get harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally figuring my way towards an end for this fic! It won't be for a few more chapters but I'm starting to figure out what's happening. It will borrow heavily from the first Iron Man movie because that is what is convenient for me to use to resolve things, but we all know by this point that canon and I don't really get along for this fic so it won't be exact.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky figures some stuff out and worries about Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this is where I start taking from the Iron Man movie for extra plot so hope that's cool with everyone

Bucky was starting to think that the world hated him. Of course his job was to investigate the attacks on the company of his ex-boyfriend who he was still in love with but who hated him because he had purposefully hurt him in order to avoid telling him about murdering his parents. Naturally that had happened. What else could have happened after all? Things like this happened to everyone right? Except they didn’t because it was fucking absurd! Bucky wasn’t religious but he was starting to wonder if there really was some sort of higher power and it just happened to hate him. 

Running into Tony at the hospital had been bad enough --bad enough meaning the most horribly awkward moment of his life-- but now he was supposed to be investigating people who hated Tony, and looking into his company on the side. It was a shit show. He had called Colonel Rhodes, who didn’t seem to know who he was to Tony, thank god, and had been polite enough to give him a list, and then he called Tony’s assistant, Pepper Potts. It… did not go particularly well. 

“Hello, Ms. Potts speaking, who is this?” She said when she answered the phone, brisk and polite. 

“Hello, this is Sergeant James Barnes, I’m a member of the Avengers team and responsible for investigating the recent attacks on Stark Industries factories.” He opened, offering a silent prayer that she didn’t know. After all, she was just Tony’s personal assistant right? Rhodes was supposed to be his best friend, and he didn’t know, so maybe…

“Ohhh, James.” She said drawing the words out in a cold amused sort of voice. “I know who you are.” 

“Great.” He said flatly. “Listen, I just wanted to ask if you could provide me with a list of people you know who hate Tony Stark and might wish to harm him and his company.” 

“Do you even care?” She asked. He gritted his teeth. 

“I am trying to do my job, Ms Potts, are you willing to talk to me?” He asked. 

“Sure, I’ll give you a list, but first I want to say something. I know your whole relationship is complicated, but Tony really cared about you and you hurt him. He is a good man, a really good man who has made a lot of mistakes but he is trying to be better. He let himself be vulnerable around you, let himself be himself around you without the mask of his persona, and you drew upon those vulnerabilities and the ways he’s trying to be better and used it to hurt him. You knew enough to know,” she told him fiercely, “I can understand being angry with him for lying, and that you’re both screwed up, but that was a weak and a cowardly thing to do. You knew that it would hurt him, because he already regrets it, because he cared about you, and you used that to get out of actually confronting the ways in which you yourself and your relationship with him were screwed up.” 

“Are you done?” He asked, when she was silent for a long moment except for angry breathing. She was right, wholly and completely right, but he didn’t have anything else to say. 

“Not really!” She exclaimed and then huffed, “I’m sorry, I am never normally like this, but I’m very angry with you, and I just don’t think I can talk civilly with you right now. If you give me your email address I will send you a list of people I know hate Tony.” She said. 

“Of course,” He agreed, reciting his email address for her, “thank you, Ms. Po-” she hung up before he finished saying her name. He grimaced and let his head fall onto his desk. He took a few deep breaths before picking himself back up. He complied a complete list of all the names Tony and his friends had given him, giving extra attention to the ones on more than one list, and started doing research. 

He looked into the details of every single person people thought might hate Tony Stark. Bucky even went as far as to visit Justin Hammer who seemed the most likely culprit as he had something to gain from Stark Enterprises tanking. And yet, he turned up no good leads. All of the people on the list either, had forgiven Tony, didn’t have access to the kind of tech required for Iron Man and weren’t smart enough to make it, or had solid alibis. Even Justin Hammer, and everyone at Hammer Industries as far as he could tell, had solid excuses. In addition specialists who Bucky had looking at what details of the Iron Man tech they did know said it was nothing like Hammer tech, it was too advanced and not at all Hammer’s style. 

Bucky returned to his desk, after what felt like an eternity of pursuing everyone who could possibly hate Tony all across the damn country, and slumped into his chair. He was pretty sure the Iron Man actually hated him instead of Tony, because he was making his life hell. It didn’t help that he basically now spent all his time talking to people about Tony Fucking Stark. Some of them did really hate him, but a lot of them explained that they had at one point but Tony was a better guy these days. Everyone knew he was trying to be more of a humanitarian and a philanthropist, but he had apparently also been making up for personal wrongs as well in the months since his return from the kidnapping. People who had been hurt by him years ago said Tony had sent them letters sincerely apologizing, and thoughtful, heartfelt gifts, even visited the people who were willing to talk to him in person. Bucky basically ended up getting a tour through Tony Stark’s journey to being a better person, which made Bucky feel like a complete asshole for acting like Tony was still the guy he used to be. 

“I hate everything.” He muttered to himself, elbows propped on his desk, face in his hands.

“Then you really don’t want to hear what I have to say.” Clint’s voice made him jump. He hadn’t heard him approach. Clint and Natasha were the only people in the world who could sneak up on him and he hated it every fucking time they did it.

“Please don’t do that.” He growled. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Clint muttered, “anyway, I have news for you that’s going to… complicate things, and you look like you’re in a bad mood so it’s all on this flashdrive I’m going to just-” He tried to duck out but Bucky grabbed him by the shirt with his metal hand. 

“Stop. Explain.” He ordered. 

“Right, so we’ve been looking into Stark Enterprises to try to see if what the Iron Man told Miss Woodley was accurate. It hasn’t been easy getting into the company itself so we started looking from the other end of things, and well -- we found some interesting things. There have been attacks on various extremist group holdings in the middle east over the past couple months, we haven’t been paying really close attention to it, it seemed like infighting at first, from different groups, but we were wrong.” Clint said with a grimace.

“How so?” Bucky demanded, hating the direction this was going in. 

“Well, we found video evidence from an attack on an extremist holding in a small town where they were basically holding the villagers prisoner, and guess who turned up?” Clint asked. 

“The Iron Man?” Bucky asked through gritted teeth. Clint nodded. 

“Yup, still no really good images of him, but he showed up, took out all the extremists, destroyed their weapons stash and even pointedly shot the lock off a building where they were keeping some of the villagers prisoner. Then he was gone,” he admitted, “so we looked into that more carefully and found evidence of Stark weapons there, not the Iron Man’s but the extremists weapons were Stark Tech. So we did more digging, and we found a pattern in a variety of attacks on hostile extremist groups which seem to be the Iron Man’s work. In each instance there has been evidence that they had Stark Weaponry, in a couple cases, what appeared to be stock piles of it.”

“Could it have been stolen?” Bucky asked. Clint grimaced. 

“Well, we thought maybe, but no one, not Stark Enterprises, not the army, no one who has enough to be a source, has reported such thefts. Looking into financials, there does appear to be a link between what we think the hostiles had and Stark Enterprises financials.” He explained, “all the details are on the flashdrive.” 

“So we think that the Iron Man is right, and someone in Stark Enterprises is double dealing, selling weapons to hostile groups?” Bucky asked. Clint nodded. 

“Unfortunately, yes. So like, the Iron Man may actually be trying to stop this, which is almost… patriotic, or at least, morally decent, though still illegal. He hasn’t hurt anyone in the US except by accident once, and abroad he has only taken out hostiles.” He agreed. 

“Great, I’m hunting a guy who is at least in some ways on our side, in order to stop him from taking down a company that is, most likely, evil.” Bucky muttered. “This company being my ex-boyfriend’s company.” It had become common knowledge among the Avengers that Bucky’s ex who he was lying to about his identity had also been lying about his identity and was Tony Stark. They all assumed that they had broken up over the lies though. 

“Yes, that about summarizes it. Good luck.” Clint said, escaping at last and hurrying away. 

Bucky reigned in his anger and plugged in the flashdrive. After looking through all the details of it, which just confirmed everything Clint has said, he was even more furious and frustrated than before. He gave up on even trying to work and just went down to the gym. He and Steve had many things in common, and one of them was abusing punching bags to help them process emotions. 

He thought over the whole of the Iron Man case as he worked off his anger and energy. Someone had found out that Stark Enterprises was dealing weapons to hostile extremists groups. That person then decided to take out Stark Weapons factories. No, that person tried to figure out how to stop it from happening legally first and hadn’t been able to. Then they had build a very advanced robotic suit in order to attack Stark Enterprises. That person was doing it because they felt that someone had to stop Stark Enterprises, felt responsible for it. That person hated Tony Stark, more than anyone hated Tony Stark... 

As Bucky turned all the pieces over in his head they slotted into place: Who felt personally responsible for Stark Enterprises’ crimes? Who had recently had opportunity to see evidence of the double dealing first hand? Who would be willing to risk life, limb, and reputation to put things right? Who hated Tony Stark the most? 

Tony Stark. 

It was obvious in a way. It had basically been staring Bucky in the face. Tony had been kidnapped by a hostile extremist group in Afghanistan, had likely seen evidence of his own company’s double dealing there. He had come back a changed man, had decided to make up for the mistakes of his past. He had tried to stop his company from making weapons at all to stop what was happening. That hadn’t worked. His own board has basically cut him off from his own company. With no power from his position as CEO he had built himself a metal robotic suit, and started blowing up his company instead. It would have been easy for him to know the best moments to attack, to know how many security guards were there, to know which factories made what. He had all the technology needed, Bucky knew for a fact that he didn’t have solid alibis for the nights of the various attacks. It would be how he had known about Kylie before the Avengers team as well, because he was the one who had brought her to the hospital, the one who had gotten her hurt and probably felt horrible about it. 

Bucky left the gym, left the office without talking to anyone and went home. He should have gone straight to Steve. He should have immediately told everyone what he had realized. He should have gotten the team together to go arrest Tony. Instead he got home, took a shower, and sat down on his couch. He stared ahead of him blankly, not really seeing the black screen of his TV. It occurred to him that it was just another thing Tony had been lying to him about, the hypocrite, and that he should probably be angry. He couldn’t find his anger though. He couldn’t blame Tony for not telling him about his criminal activities, it wasn’t something you told people about after all. He couldn’t even blame Tony for what he was doing. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if he was in Tony’s place. Then he realized that he didn’t really have to imagine. Bucky had made pretty much the same choice as Tony. Tony had unintentionally been a part of something evil, something he hated, and upon discovering it he had chosen to fight against that thing. Hadn’t Bucky done the same? When he had come back to himself he could have happily lived off of back pay from the army and retired, but instead he had joined the Avengers to fight against Hydra. 

“How can I possibly turn him in?” Bucky asked aloud. How could he turn in the man he loved for doing something he thought was honorable in its way? How could he stop Tony from trying to make up for what he saw as his mistakes? How could he sentence a good man like Tony, a brilliant, amazing, incredible man, to imprisonment? 

He had thought it was bad enough when he had just been searching for a mysterious technologically advanced criminal. It had been bad enough when he hated the Iron Man, when he had thought he was the villain of the story. If there was one thing he knew though, it was that Tony wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t the one who was willingly selling weapons to horrible people knowing people would get hurt. 

That made Bucky wonder, if Tony hadn’t been the one who started the double dealing, and obviously he hadn’t been, who had? Who had enough authority? Who could do it and keep it private enough that even Shield/Avengers hackers were having trouble finding evidence. Mostly to distract himself Bucky decided to focus on figuring out who was responsible for the treason first before deciding anything. As he thought about that though, it occurred to him how very strange it was that Tony, someone who clearly would never approve of the double dealing but had arguably the most power in the company, happened to be kidnapped by a group that his company was dealing with. It would have been a rather lucky coincidence for the other powerful members of the company who were double dealing behind his back if Tony disappeared, or that he was easily discredited as not in his right mind due to trauma upon his return. Bucky didn’t believe in lucky coincidences. 

It was more than possible that whoever was doing the double dealing was responsible for Tony’s kidnapping. So the real question was, who would have the most to gain from Tony’s disappearance. He had an inkling, and if he was right, Tony was in danger, so he called up the most reliable specialist he knew. 

“Natasha, I need you to do me a favor,” he declared instead of saying hello. Any thoughts of what to do about Tony’s own activities were pushed to the back of his mind behind the priority of making sure Tony was safe. 

“What?” She asked, never one to agree before she knew the details. 

“I need you to get me anything and everything important off of Obadiah Stane’s computer,” Bucky answered, “I have a feeling he’s the one responsible for a lot of my headaches. I need that information as quickly as possible.” 

“I’ll do it, but you’ll owe me one.” Natasha said. It was a dangerous thing to trade favors with someone like Natasha but he was willing to risk it. The fact was, if Stane was the one double dealing, and if he was also responsible for getting Tony kidnapped, he undoubtedly never meant for Tony to escape. He would still want him dead. 

“I’ll owe you two,” Bucky said after a moment, “if you can get it to me fast, and without looking at it yourself,” he offered. He could practically heard Natasha’s dangerous smile.

“Done.” She agreed. “I’ll come to your apartment when I have it.” 

Bucky waited in his apartment, as night started to fall, trying to convince himself that Tony was probably fine. It had been months and months since he had come back, if Stane hadn’t tried to kill him again so far, he probably wasn’t going to do it that night specifically. No matter how much he told himself that he couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable anxiety. He made himself stay put until Natasha came. He couldn’t go racing off on assumptions and guesswork. He had to have all the details and then make a plan. 

Natasha turned up a few hours of pure anxiety later, flashdrive in hand. 

“Why the urgency?” She asked. He shrugged. 

“I just have a really bad feeling about this.” He admitted. 

“Well, I trust your instincts,” she said, “good luck.” 

“Thanks.” Bucky said, with a horrible feeling that he would need it. She turned elegantly and disappeared. He hurried back into his apartment and plugged the drive into his. What Bucky found among Stane’s files was worse than he had expected. 

Stane was responsible for all of it. He had gotten Tony kidnapped, had wanted him killed, but his business partners had other plans. Tony had escaped by building a rudimentary Iron Man suit, which Stane knew about. He had plans for his own version of the Iron Man suit, but couldn’t make it work. Of course if Stane knew that Tony had made the first version of the suit, he undoubtedly knew that Tony was the one who was blowing up his company. He hadn’t turned him in though. The only reason Bucky could imagine that Stane hadn’t already gotten rid of Tony by turning him in or killing him, was that he still needed Tony to get his own suit to work. Bucky didn’t expect Stane was going to be polite in attempting to acquire what he needed from Tony. Bucky pulled out his phone to call Tony.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” He muttered under his breath as the phone rang and rang. It went to voicemail. Bucky hung up and tried again. He called four times from his phone and then found a burner in his closet and called three times from that so Tony wouldn’t ignore it because it was him. Somewhere around the third call he left his apartment and drove straight to the nearest quinjet available (they stashed them in a variety of places). Tony didn’t answer any of his calls. Bucky used the burner to dial Ms Potts’ number as he started prepping the jet to fly.

“Hello, Ms. Potts speaking, who is this?” She asked. 

“Don’t hang up, this is a matter of life and death,” he said quickly, knowing she would recognize his voice. 

“What do you want, James?” She asked him. 

“Where is Tony right now? Is he safe?” Bucky asked. 

“Mr Stark has returned to his house in California for the weekend at the least.” She answered, “He called me to tell me he had arrived. I’m to follow him tomorrow.” Bucky swore internally. Stane was in California, along with one of the biggest Stark Enterprises offices and factories. 

“Call him, right now, on a different phone, stay on the line with me.” Bucky told her. To her credit she didn’t argue she just did what she was told. They both listened to the phone ring again and again in tense silence. She tried a different number. No answer. 

“That’s not normal.” Pepper said, sounding worried, “James what is going on?” 

“I’m pretty sure Obadiah Stane wants Tony dead and going back to California gave him his opportunity.” Bucky admitted. 

“Oh my god, oh no, what are we going to do?” She asked. 

“I’m going to go find him, them, I’ll keep him safe,” Bucky told her, already getting the quinjet into the air, “until then, call the cops send them to Tony’s house, just in case.” He added. Less than an hour after realizing who was out to get Tony Bucky was flying towards California as fast as modern technology could move him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's going to be like one or two more chapters of this! I hope you guys have been enjoying it! I know this finding out chapter wasn't exactly what everyone was expecting, not a huge confrontation, but I hope you liked it anyway!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets into a fight with Obadiah, Bucky shows up to help, stuff happens, people talk, shit's crazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead Guys!! I am so sorry that I vanished for so long! College and depression teamed up and kicked my ass these past few months, but I made it through the semester, and I finished this fic! I'll post the last chapter tomorrow.

Tony had needed to get out of New York for a couple days. He had checked in on Kylie before leaving, and then flown out on his personal jet. He brought his Iron Man armour with him but had promised both Rhodey and Pepper that he would not be using it. He just wanted to spent a quiet weekend in his workshop out there.

As soon as he got to his place in California he turned off his phone and retreated into his workshop. He didn’t expect there to be any issues though. Kylie’s doctors said she was doing very well, and should be just fine so that shouldn’t be a problem. Pepper could keep everything running smoothly all on her own as far as his professional and public life. And if James Bucky Barnes needed to find him he could fuck right off. 

When his doorbell rang partway into his evening he wanted to pretend he wasn’t there. 

“Sir, it is Mr Stane.” Jarvis told him. Tony sighed. He should talk to Obadiah. They hadn’t talked much since the kidnapping thing since Tony had been in New York being shut out of his company and Obadiah was in California being a very important part of running the company. Tony had sort of been avoiding him. He knew that the double dealing, the bad shit his company was in went really high up. He was a little terrified to find out how high up. He couldn’t bear the thought that Obadiah, who had always been there for him, was responsible. He had to explore the possibility though. 

“No time like the present.” He muttered heading up the stairs. 

No matter how much he suspected that Obadiah might have something to do with the nightmare that was his company Tony had never expected what happened. He had never expected to be left semi-paralyzed on his living room floor without his arc reactor because a man who had been a friend and a father figure to him wanted him dead. He was pretty sure he was going to die as he desperately crawled to his workshop, towards the extra arc reactor Pepper had saved for him. He had told her to destroy it but she had kept it for him, and if she hadn’t he’d be dead. He would have to tell her so she could rub it in his face. 

He almost didn’t make it to his extra reactor, but Dummy had his back, bless the stupid robot. 

“Okay Jarvis, I need to get going,” Tony said once he was up and walking again. 

“That reactor was not built with flight capabilities in mind.” Jarvis reminded him. 

“I know it wasn’t, we’ll make due. If Obadiah gets his suit up and working we’re dead. I have to stop him.” 

“Sir I wouldn’t advise it.” Jarvis warned. 

“Noted.” Tony agreed before taking off. He did get into the air and stay there which was a relief. He had been sort of terrified that he was just going to go crashing to the ground and then Jarvis would laugh at him before being helpful. He was really hoping that he could stop Obadiah before he got the arc reactor into any sort of weapon. Unfortunately… that didn’t exactly work out. 

The last thing Tony wanted to do was fight his former mentor all across the city while he was stuck with an inferior arc reactor, running on very little food and sleep, and still not quite over the whole paralysis thing. Tony was starting to realize that he almost never got what he wanted, at least not these days. He figured he was very well screwed when he found himself on the roof, face to face with Obadiah who had a much bigger suit while his own was running out of juice. If he was going to die though he figured he might as well go out fighting, nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t like he had a lot left to live for.

“Jay, if I don’t survive this, tell Pepper I’m sorry, and make sure she looks after Kylie for me,” he said with a smile. 

“Sir, please,” Jarvis protested, he didn’t really have time to finish what he said before they were under attack again. The last thing Tony expected was for help to show up for him, especially not in the form of Bucky Barnes. Nevertheless, there he was metal arm shining, face covered by an eye mask, gun in hand. 

“Tony, down!” Bucky shouted. Tony moved for all the good shooting did against their sort of armor.

“Guns don’t really work,” Tony told him grimly.

“Not the point right now!” Bucky called back, Tony had to jump in front of him to stop Bucky from getting shot. 

“You’re going to get yourself killed here,” he protested. The fact that Bucky was there and knew that Tony was the person in the red Iron-Man suit was starting to sink in, and he was starting to freak out but he also had bigger problems. 

“Oh and you were doing so well on your own?” Bucky told him, “I’m here to save your damn life.” 

“Here I didn’t think you were one to care if I died or not,” Tony muttered, unfortunately muttering in the suit was still pretty audible.

“If you keep talking, I might just rethink my decision not to arrest you afterwards,” Bucky told him, doing a truly impressive flip to try to get another shot off at Obadiah. Tony sort of wished that he wasn’t still so desperately in love with him and that Bucky wasn’t so damn fucking attractive. 

“Right, because that’s what I’m fucking concerned about right now,” Tony snapped at him. It wasn’t what he was worried about, but he was worried about Bucky knowing who he was and hating him even more. Neither of them had time to talk for a moment as the fight kept them busy.

“Get downstairs! I have an idea!” Tony snapped, having weighed all of his other options. Overcharging the arc reactor and blasting Obadiah into the sky was not the greatest idea ever, especially considering that he was also on the goddamned roof, but it was the best plan he had. It even worked, mostly. It definitely took care of Obadiah anyway, Tony saw that much before he got caught up in the shit storm they unleashed. And then he was unconscious. 

~~~~~~

When he woke up he was in a hospital room, in a hospital gown instead of his suit. The beeping of the machines was sort of comforting. He opened his eyes, grimacing at the throbbing in his head that only got worse with the light. 

“Tony, are you alright?!” Pepper’s face was suddenly hovering right over him, full of concern.

“Woah, give the man a little bit of space,” Rhodey’s voice warned. She backed up a bit so he could turn to see them both. 

“Hey guys… what happened?” He asked, fumbling for the bed remote and leaning himself up with it. 

“What do you remember?” Pepper asked. 

“Getting betrayed by Obadiah, getting into a holy hell fight with him, then James --Bucky, whatever you want to call him-- showed up to help. We blew the big arc reactor to take Stane out, then everything goes dark and I wake up here,” Tony summarized. 

“James brought you to the hospital, he called me, and I called Rhodey. You have a concussion amongst other things but you should be fine. You’ve been unconscious for almost a day though,” Pepper filled in for him. 

“Where is James?” Tony asked, “how and why did he show up in the first place?” 

“He was investigating you and your company which led him to figuring out about you being Iron Man, and about Stane, we tried to call you but you didn’t answer, so he took one of their fancy Avengers jets out to go check in on you. He was really worried,” Pepper answered.

“But we still made him wait in the hallway,” Rhodey added, “figured the last thing you needed was waking up to a conversation with your ex, even if he did save your life.”

“Thanks,” Tony croaked, voice hoarse. He gratefully accepted the water Pepper was already offering him before he tried to say anything else. 

“Is he still out there?” Tony asked, wondering if he was just waiting around to arrest him. That sounded like pretty much the right ending to his shittiest day. 

“Yeah, he said he wouldn’t leave until he had a chance to talk to you,” Pepper said, 

“Oh great,” Tony muttered, “hey, look can you guys step out when you send him in?” Tony asked. 

“Tony, you just woke up, you shouldn’t do this right now,” Rhodey told him, “you should rest, he can wait. What is he going to do, come into your hospital room, pull you out of bed and handcuff you? Not on my watch.” 

“I have to handle this. One way or another, James and I need to resolve this,” Tony said. He wasn’t sure where the confidence came from, maybe he was just sick and tired of running from shit, tired of being a walking disaster. He just wanted to have everything out in the open and over with, one way or another. 

“You’re sure?” Pepper asked.

“I am.” Tony agreed. Pepper sighed and headed towards the door. 

“That easy?” Rhodey asked her. 

“You know how he is once he makes up his mind,” she said with a sigh, waving him towards the door. 

“Fine, but we’ll be right outside. If you need anything I will drag his ass right out of here.” Rhodey was dead serious. Tony smiled at him fondly. 

“I’ll be fine, I can handle my ex-boyfriend,” he said, “but thank you.” Rhodey and Pepper stepped out of the room and the door didn’t even close before James stepped in. 

“How are you doing?” he asked. 

“Feel like I’ve been clubbed over the head. And you?” Tony answered. 

“I am so sorry you got hurt. I didn’t make it in time, I’m sorry.” Bucky said. He had his hands clasped together, worrying at the metal one with the real one. 

“You aren’t here to arrest me?” Tony asked. 

“No, as a matter of fact, you’ve been cleared,” Bucky said, sounding a little surprised, “it turns out there were two people in Iron man suits, one was a treasonous criminal named Obadiah Stane, and the other was fighting against him. The second Iron Man is anonymous as of now, but if you wanted to keep him around that is your decision.”

“How did you swing that?” Tony asked. 

“I just made a few calls, what the Avengers say usually tends to go with most people. I called Steve. Your company took a hit but should survive, your reputation both as Tony Stark and as Iron Man remains intact,” Bucky told him. 

“Why’d you do that for me?” Tony asked. 

“Because you’re a good man, who was just trying to do the right thing, and you deserve a shot at a good life,” Bucky told him, “I know I said some horrible things to you, but I was wrong. I guess that’s why I am here, I needed to apologize to you.” Tony hadn’t been expecting that. 

“You’re apologizing?” Tony asked, off balance. 

“For what I said to you that night when… you know the night,” Bucky said, “at least I’m starting with apologizing for that. I lashed out, it was unfair, I didn’t mean it.” 

“You don’t think I’m a murderous coward anymore?” Tony asked. He tried to conjure up all of his anger, distress, anything. It didn’t come. 

“No, and I never did,” Bucky told him. 

“You know, I probably shouldn’t, but I forgive you,” Tony admitted, “with everything that’s happened. I don’t care, what you said. We both treated each other kind of like shit because we were both epic disasters, we both still are.” 

“You’ll be just fine,” James said, “you’re Tony Stark. Nothing can keep you down.” 

“Yeah… Tony Stark,” Tony agreed with a sigh, “I kind of miss Anthony Moore.” he admitted. 

“You’re still him too,” Bucky said, leaning against the edge of his bed, “look, that person, the guy I fell in love with. It’s still you. Changing your name doesn’t change who you are, not really. You are an amazing person, you are. I don’t hate you, and I wish you wouldn’t hate yourself.” 

“Who says I hate myself?”

“You do,” he said, “You said yourself that no one hates you more.” Tony grimaced. Talking to Kylie when he was still in his armor was always going to come back and bite him in the ass. 

“I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” Bucky told him. 

“And how’s that?” Tony asked, “look at me James, I’m in a hospital bed with a concussion, and I probably look completely awful.” 

“You’re amazing, Anthony. I look at you and see this man who grew up isolated with a life that would make anyone else come out of it an arrogant selfish bastard for good. But here you are, having hospitalized yourself fighting to protect everyone else. You saw that things weren’t right, in yourself, and in the world, and you fought to fix them. It would have been so easy not to, except I don’t think that was even an option to you. Bad men don’t hate themselves, only good men who think they aren’t good enough do. You’re a good man, the best man, I just-” James seemed to be struggling to find the right words, “I look at you and I see someone absolutely beautiful. I look at you and I see a hero, someone with a good heart, who fights to protect others, even at risk of getting hurt or killed.” His voice was more full of emotion than the first time he told Tony he loved him. Tony bit his lip, trying not to cry. He was a fully grown man and he wasn’t going to cry because the man he loved said wonderful things about him. He wasn’t. 

“James,” Tony managed after a moment in a wavering voice, “do you think we could ever get to a point where we could, well, try again? He asked quietly. James had always been capable of making him feel nervous and doubtful the way nothing else did. He cared too damn much about James and their relationship to ever be casual and blase about it the way he was about everything else. James looked down, not saying anything. 

“Right, sorry. I thought maybe you still… but clearly I was wrong… that’s fine I just-” Tony stammered. 

“No,” James said, catching one of Tony’s hands with both of his, holding it gently, “I still love you, I do, but there is something I have to tell you before we even think about trying again.” 

“What is it?” Tony asked, studying Janes’ face closely. He looked positively mournful; not a good sign. 

“I-” James started and then shook his head with a grimace, “Sorry this is hard for me. I don’t like to think about it, but I have to tell you. I’m just scared you’ll hate me after I do.” 

“I love you, James. You can’t tell me anything that would make me hate you,” Tony promised. 

“You don’t know the things I’ve done,” Bucky murmured almost as if to himself. 

“Just tell me, I promise that whatever it is, we will talk about it like adults,” Tony promised. Bucky nodded, he studied their intertwined hands for a few breaths’ before speaking. 

“You know that I knew your father, don’t you?” he asked first. Tony nodded, a little confused.

“Steve was more his friend than I ever was, but I knew him during the war, before I was captured. I know he wasn’t the best father, but he was still a good man, and I liked him,” Bucky said, “but when I was the Soldier it didn’t matter who I had liked before. I had no control over my body. I wasn’t even me, but I was aware of what I was doing, like being trapped in the back of my own brain without having the reins.” 

“What are you saying?” Tony asked. 

“Your father was trying to redevelop the serum they used on Steve, and he was getting close, the Soviets wanted the serum too. They just didn’t want to do the hard work. Instead they sent the Soldier to steal it from your father…. Your parents were driving one night in nineteen ninety-one, they had the serum in the trunk, they were leaving for a trip.”

“They crashed, and they both died,” Tony finished for him. 

“They did crash, and they did both die,” Bucky agreed, “but they crashed because the Soldier shot out their tires, and they died after the crash, I killed them. I killed your parents, Tony. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice. I am so sorry.” 

“You… killed…” Tony felt numb. Bucky let go of his hands. 

“I had orders, and when I was the Soldier, I was incapable of disobeying orders. If they ordered me to kill my own mother I would have,” he said with a grimace, “I killed your parents, and that night when we fought, I realised what it meant that you were Tony Stark, and I couldn’t bear it. I lashed out because I was desperate to get out of there. I’m sorry Anthony, I am so sorry, for everything. I had to tell you the truth though, you deserved to know.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tony admitted after a long moment, “James, I-” he bit his lip and wiped the tears off of his cheeks desperately. He pulled at his hair anxiously. 

“I understand if you’re furious, if you want to kill me, if you never want to see me again,” Bucky told him, “but I want you to know that I never ever would have hurt them if I could help it, and I never wanted to hurt you. I’m going to go now, but before I do Steve wanted me to tell you that if Iron Man ever wants to be an Avenger, we would love to have you on the team, no matter what happens between us. If you can forgive me… just call, or text, or show up at my door, hell send a carrier pigeon if you want, I don’t care. I’d like to say that I’ll move on if I don’t hear from you in whatever amount of time, but that’s a lie. I’ll just keep hoping.” 

Tony just watched him go silently, tears still steaming down his face. He couldn’t seem to stop them. He didn’t know how to even process everything that James had said. He just sat in his stupid hospital bed in his stupid hospital gown, and let himself cry over his murdered parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys deal with their shit, independently and together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks, last chapter

Bucky felt like hell as he walked away from the hospital where Tony was recovering. He would have given anything to be able to go back to the moment before he told Tony the truth, to go back to both of them forgiving each other, loving each other, wanting to try again. He knew he couldn’t though. Telling Tony had been the right thing to do even if it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. Tony deserved the truth, and Bucky couldn’t keep lying and still be with him. If they had any sort of chance at being together, and he was pretty sure they didn’t, they had to be honest with each other. 

Bucky went back to his quinjet and flew back to New York. He skipped going to the office and filing reports in favor of going home and collapsing into his bed with his dogs. He removed his metal arm and tossed it towards his closet. He wasn’t in the mood to feel like anymore like a freak than he always did. Ace curled up at his back and Delilah licked his face worriedly. He pet her a little to calm her down and in return she purposefully laid down on his head. He didn’t care enough to move her. Before he fell asleep he turned off his morning alarm. 

He woke up in the morning to Ace barking to go out. Bucky groaned and took the dogs out, then brought them back in and crawled back into his bed. He knew he should probably go in to work, write up his report on the whole Iron Man case, and tell Steve what happened, but he wasn’t in the mood. He wasn’t in the mood for anything. If he didn’t know that Ace and Delilah needed him he figured he would just lay in bed and wait until he wasted away. He couldn’t though, the dogs did need him, and Steve was bound to come bother him about continuing to live one way or another. Life was so exhausting that way, you could never take a break from it, it just kept pestering you to keep on living. For the time being though he figured he could at least get away with not going to work. As long as he was home and they were forcing him to live he might as well take care of the dogs. 

“Ace, brush,” he called. Ace came trotting in carrying the dog brush followed by his sister. Bucky picked Delilah up and brought her onto his bed. Ace hopped up after her. Bucky spent the next two hours carefully brushing out all their matts and loose fur. He was just finishing cleaning up when Steve came in. He didn’t both knocking and he didn’t have to. He had a key. 

“What the hell, Buck?” Steve demanded. 

“I’m spending some quality time with my dogs, because they love me unconditionally because they don’t know that I was a soviet assassin who killed good people including the parents of the love of my life,” Bucky said, tossing the last few dog-hair-tumbleweeds into the trash. 

“So you told him?” Steve asked. 

“Yes, I told him everything. I told him about how we fixed everything, I apologized for what happened between us, I told him I still loved him, I told him about his parents and I did also tell him he could be a part of the team if he wanted,” Bucky answered. 

“What did he say?” 

“Well, initially he said he loved me too and that there was nothing I could say to make him hate me. Then well then he didn’t say much of anything. Actually he told me that he didn’t know what to say and then he just cried. I told him everything and then left. I figured he’d need to be alone for a while, or at least just with Ms Potts and Colonel Rhodes. They’ll take care of him.” 

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve said with a sigh, “you never know, he might come around.” 

“Stevie, I killed his Ma. If I was him, I wouldn’t forgive me,” Bucky told him. He went back into his bedroom and crawled back into bed. 

“Are you planning on coming to work or are we just wallowing in self pity today?” Steve asked, following him to stand judgmentally in the doorway. 

“What does it look like?” Bucky mumbled into his pillows. 

“Bucky,” Steve sighed sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“I’m taking the day off, let me fucking wallow,” Bucky groaned. 

“Can you promise me you’ll be in tomorrow morning?” Steve asked. 

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” Bucky mumbled.

“Okay. Now, as your friend, not your boss, are you alright?” Steve asked. 

“You’re not the boss of anyone here, punk,” Bucky teased, even thought Steve technically was his boss as far as Avengers’ business went. He was the leader of the team. 

“So he’s the love of your life?” Steve asked. 

“Yeah, I think so. He’s amazing you know? He’s just a great person. He makes me feel like I’m a good person too, you know? He makes me laugh. He makes me think. I’m comfortable with him the way I’m only only comfortable with you. Only you’re my brother and he’s-” 

“A sexy billionaire?” Steve filled in for him. Bucky chuckled and then sighed and buried his face in his pillows again. 

“Sorry,” Steve murmured, “do you want to talk about it? You can tell me all about him and we can try to find parts of him you don’t like to focus on.” 

“What is there not to like?” Bucky asked. 

“He’s old,” Steve suggested, “I mean, I know we’re both technically well over eighty, but we’re actually only in our twenties. He’s forty-three right?” 

“You might only be twenty-eight but I’m definitely in my early thirties at least,” Bucky reminded him, “I was frozen most of the time but I was still awake for several years. Anyway, I might be younger and a super soldier but it’s not like he can’t keep up. He can more than keep up.” 

“When I said tell me about him, I really did not mean tell me about your sex-life,” Steve said with a grimace. 

“It’s not my fault that you don’t have a sex-life,” Bucky teased. 

“We are not here to talk about my sex life or lack thereof,” Steve pointed out, “look, maybe you two have just gone through too much shit. So perhaps you’re just meant to be with someone else, someone better for you.”

“Who would you suggest is better for me?” Bucky demanded. 

“I don’t know, Nat? You guys have history, shared interests and past,” Steve offered. 

“Don’t even go there, Natalia and I do have history and it’s over now,” Bucky told him sternly, “we’re good as friends, but anything else would be bad for us both. Besides I don’t feel like that about her and she doesn’t feel like that about me.” 

“Well, are you sure that Tony is the right guy for you?” Steve asked. 

“Anthony is kind, he has a hero’s heart. He knows how to take care of himself. Sure he has a rough history but so do I and they mesh well, outside of my killing his parents. He’s done things he’s not proud of and so have I. We’re both kind of self-loathing disasters, but I think we could help each other get over it. He treats me like a real person, even when we fought he has treated me like a real person. He is incredible, and sweet, and brilliant, and good lord he’s beautiful. It killed me to see him in the hospital, he looked so small and weak in that stupid gown. Normally though, when he’s in a room he has a presence like no one else. You command attention in a way that demands attention and respect. Anthony has a presence that demands attention in the way of awe and adoration, and not the way he demands it aloud when he’s acting all arrogant and shit. It’s just because of who he is,” Bucky sighed, “And I know he is actually arrogant sometimes, which I’d ordinarily hate but he was never that way with me. I’m pretty sure a lot of it is all a smokescreen. Anyway, I kind of think it’s endearing.”

“You really love him don’t you?” Steve said, “I’ve never heard you talk that way about anyone.”

“Yeah, I really do. I really love him, and our relationship is really dead.” 

“Hey, don’t say that, you don’t know anything for sure. I might not know the guy, but if he's as incredible as all that, and if he loves you half as much as you love him, he’ll find a way to forgive you,” Steve promised. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky said with a sigh, “but one way or another, I’ll survive.” 

“You sure you’ll be alright?” Steve asked. Bucky rolled over and nodded. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t come into work today, I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.” He didn’t feel any less depressed, but he felt a little more functional than before. Steve had that effect. 

“Well, I’m going to make you a sandwich and make sure you eat it before I leave, but then I will leave you to your sulking and recovering,” Steve promised. Bucky dutifully ate the sandwich Steve made him even though he still wasn’t particularly hungry, and he even walked Steve to the door. 

“I’m really sorry everything played out this way,” Steve told him before he left. 

“So am I,” Bucky agreed, “but he’s not dead, and honestly, that’s a win right now.” Steve still looked awfully worried about him, hesitant to leave. Bucky sighed. 

“I’ll be fine, Steve, really. I’m just mopey. I’ll see you tomorrow okay?” he asked. 

“See you tomorrow,” Steve agreed.

Bucky was fine. He wasn’t happy, but he was fine. He went back to work and filed his reports. He trained with Natasha and Steve and the others and did all of the things he was supposed to do. He very pointedly did not google his ex boyfriend. When Steve made puppy dog eyes at him, all worried, he assured him he just needed time. Bucky didn’t actually know if time would really help, but he figured if he just kept going through the motions he would get used to it eventually. That didn’t mean he was happy about it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony spent an obnoxiously long time in the hospital. Okay it was actually only a week because he had a concussion and a broken rib and they were being extra cautious, but it felt like forever when all he had to do was sit around and think. They wouldn’t let him spent much time with his phone because staring at screens was bad for people with concussions. He hated them for that. He just wanted Jarvis. No that was a lie, he wanted a lot of things. He wanted to be at home in New York. He wanted Jarvis in the ceiling talking to him. He wanted to be able to breathe without it hurting. He wanted to not have been forced to kill one of his dad’s best friends. He wanted his parents not to be fucking dead. He wanted James to come back and tell him that it wasn’t true so Tony could just curl up in his arms and feel safe and loved again. He didn’t get what he wanted. 

Leaving the hospital still didn’t feel much like going home when he was still trapped on the wrong coast, but they wouldn’t let him fly anywhere for some time. Still he was officially free to do what he wanted, and he didn’t have to worry about his company being evil or anyone arresting him. All things considered he should have been celebrating, but he wasn’t. He still felt like shit. He hid it behind his usual mask of arrogance and snark around everyone but Pepper and Rhodey, who both knew the full truth. Even around them he refused to talk about it. He told them he didn’t have time to talk about it, he told himself he didn’t have time to think about it, he had a company to get back on track after all. The truth was that he couldn’t bear to think about what had happened between him and James or what James had told him. It was too hard. All of it was so fraught with intense emotion and so complicated and he just couldn’t deal with it, so he didn’t think about it. 

The first thing Tony did when they released him from the hospital was tell Pepper to call a press conference to take place in two hours. Then he went back to the house, changed and made himself look as presentable as possible. In the end he still looked like he had been through hell; the cut on his forehead was particularly distinctive even stitched shut, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Once he felt like himself again, really himself, he checked his phone, which they finally gave back to him. 

Tony had a million emails to sort through, but Jarvis brought one in particular to his attention. It was from goddamn Captain America which felt wrong somehow. He just didn’t feel like email and a supersoldier from the forties should fit in the same sentence. Then he remembered that Steve Rogers was James’ best friend and was suddenly terrified. Why would Steve be emailing him? Was James okay? Had something happened? He swallowed down the discomfort and the fear to open the email. 

“Dear Mr Stark, 

I hope that you are well, and healing from your injuries from your recent fight. I am glad that we could resolve the issues with Mr Stane, your company, and your personal reputation. I understand and appreciate what you were doing as Iron Man despite the potentially extra-legal nature of your actions. Of course, as the property damaged was in fact all your own, and the only person injured refuses to even think about pressing charges against you, there does not appear to be any crime we can arrest you for; a fact that brings me great joy. 

I know you have taken great strides in your life recently to try to make right certain wrongs. If you would like to continue that work I would be glad to extend you a formal invitation to join the Avengers team. We operate as an attachment of SHIELD, and as such answer to Nicholas Fury. He assures me that you are aware of his opinions of you, which are not particularly favorable. However, as we are mostly independent and you have glowing commendations from Sgt Barnes, the previous objections to your being on the team have been silenced. I do hope you at least consider joining us. I believe you could do truly wonderful things. 

On a more personal note, you have my sincerest apologies for the deaths of your parents, and the circumstances of them which have been revealed to you. Your father was my friend, and a good man, I was very sorry to hear he had passed before I woke up. I do hope that your feelings on this matter will not turn you against Sgt Barnes, or discourage you from becoming an Avenger. I know it is a hard thing to ask of you, but I must ask you to remember that while it was Sgt Barnes’ physical body that performed the actions, they were not his actions. Sgt Barnes was a helpless bystander to the actions of the Winter Soldier. He remembers every action, and feels personally responsible for all of them despite his lack of culpability. No one regrets what happened more than him. He has been struggling with that trauma and guilt ever since he was recovered and cured of the Soviet brainwashing. Perhaps it is not my place to say it, but I believe the months he was with you were the happiest and the healthiest I have seen from him since I found him. No matter what the future brings I thank you for the good that you did do for him. You must be a truly incredible person to have such an effect, Mr Stark, and I do hope that I will have a chance to know you as I did your father. I am sure Howard would be very proud of you. 

Sincerely, 

Steve Rogers”

Tony stared at the email for so long without moving that the screen timed out and went dark. He woke it up and reread the damn email. He didn’t know what to think, what to feel. Rogers’ words were doing battle with the part of him that insisted he not think about any of it. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deal with it. Only of course Steve fucking Rogers, Mr. Perfect, just had to go and stick his nose in Tony’s business and try to make him think about things, tried to make him feel things. Well, he could fuck right off. Tony had learned to ignore Captain America when he was young and his father had seemed to care more about a dead guy than he did about his own son. He could just keep right on ignoring him. 

“Tony?” Pepper’s voice broke him out of his reverie. He looked up to meet her concerned gaze and realized that she must have said his name more than once. 

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asked, going for a casual tone and failing. 

“The car is here and it’s time to leave for the press conference,” she told him, “but you really don’t have to go. If you don’t feel up for it we can reschedule,” she added. 

“Nope, we’re doing it, let’s go,” he said already walking towards the door and the car waiting just outside. 

“Are you sure, I mean, you’ve just got out of the hospital, and the last time we did this it was a bit of a mess. Maybe it would be better if you just stayed here and got some rest,” Pepper suggested, tapping along quick pace to keep up with him. Tony glared at her. 

“You know as well as I do that I need to get out there and get on top of everything as soon as I can,” he said, “anyway I’ve been resting for too long already. I’ve been hiding from society and the world, and not doing my job as CEO of this damn company and it’s time for me to get back to work.” He climbed into the car, ignoring the face she made at his small gasp of pain. He didn’t care if it hurt to fucking move. He didn’t care that he was pale and bruised and had lost weight. He had a job to do and he was going to do it, because he couldn’t just sit around with his thoughts and Captain America’s nosey emails. 

~~~~~~~~

Bucky turned on his livestream as soon as Tony’s press conference was announced. He had told himself he wouldn’t go looking for news about Tony, but he had forgotten to turn off the alert he had on his phone for news about the guy (which he had only set because he was investigating his company). When he heard that Tony had just gotten out of the hospital and was holding a press conference he couldn’t help himself. He waited anxiously as he watched the empty podium through the stream, ignoring all the reporters jostling for space. When Tony came out he bit his lip. Tony had cut his hair again, not as short as he had worn it before his kidnapping in Afghanistan, but much shorter than he had let it grow when he and Bucky were together. It was carefully styled, and he had grown his trademark goatee back. He must have done it in the week since Bucky saw him clean shaven at the hospital. He looked good. Well, with the bruise on his cheek and the cut on his head he still looked a little battered but the hair and goatee paired with an immaculate suit in a red so dark it almost looked purple were enough to distract from his injuries and make him look sexy and powerful. Bucky tried to ignore that thought. 

“Hello, everyone,” Tony greeted with a smile, “thank you for coming on short notice. I know it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these and the last one didn’t go that well, what with me announcing the shutdown of weapons manufacturing at Stark Industries and then getting that decision overruled,” he chucked and that and the way he spoke stopped it from being an awkward thing to say. He was himself again, rather than the small sad version Bucky had last seen in the hospital. Still Bucky could see that he was acting stronger than he felt by the lack of gleam in his eye, and the way he stood like he was in pain. 

“Now, I am sure you have all heard that there were in fact two men in metal suits in this country recently, thanks to our admirable friends in the Avengers. One of these men was indeed working against the laws and values of this country,against the values and interests of Stark Industries, and against the basic moral decency of humanities. That man was my recently deceased board member, Obadiah Stane,” he paused as there was a minor uproar, “I am telling you this because I want to be clear about the events of these past few months. Stane was dealing weapons to terrorists, and he manipulated my company and my board of directors to bend to his wishes and turn against me. I was not aware of any of this until my kidnapping, which, I found out, Stane had organized. As soon ad I returned I set about trying to stop him in any way possible. I stepped out of the public eye so I could turn all my attentions towards proving Stane’s guilt, eradicating his influence on Stark Industries, and stopping him from hurting our world any further. I had hoped to make sure he saw justice in one of our nation’s courts of law, but just over a week ago things got out of hand and he died in a fight with the other metal suited man. His death was accidental, as Iron Man, I only think it fitting to give the heroic one the name, only sought to stop him from hurting people. That man, was me. I am Iron Man.” there was another uproar which took longer for the security and police presence to calm down so Tony could continue.

“I want everyone to know, that I plan on leading the way into a brighter, safer future, both at Stark Industries, and the world. As such, we will officially this time, be shutting down all weapons manufacturing at Stark Industries. This decision was not made lightly or because of Mr Stane’s crimes. It is something I have decided upon after witnessing the harm weapons do to this world and the people in it, no matter whose hands they are in. However, because of Mr Stane’s crimes and my company’s unfortunate involvement in them, we will also be spearheading a movement to clean up the areas he has harmed, and help the people there. I will personally see to it that Stark Weapons do not harm anymore citizens of this world.” With that comment he opened the floor for questions. He only accepted a few of them but handled them all excellently before Pepper stepped forwards to cut everyone off. 

“That will be all for today,” she said sharply, “Mr Stark is still recovering from injuries. He may ignore them, but it’s my job not to.” 

“Thank you Pepper,” Tony said before turning back to the press, “Pepper Potts everyone, I would be absolutely lost without this woman, she is possibly even more brilliant than me, and she is right, I have to go. I promise you will all be seeing me again soon,” Tony told them all before leaving the podium. 

Bucky couldn’t help smiling a little as he watched Tony leave, and then shut the feed off. Tony had been very brave, and he’d been honest, and real. Most people might not have noticed any difference in the way he acted but there was sincerity in the way he spoke about helping people and his brighter future. There was a vulnerableness that he had never shown in his former public appearances. Bucky recognized it though, and he was proud. Tony was doing well, and Bucky was truly happy for him. He wanted Tony to be happy, even if it hurt to see him happy when he couldn’t be with him. That was love.

~~~~~~~~

After the press conference Tony was so busy with work that it was easy enough to pretend what happened with James hadn’t happened. He pointedly ignored the unanswered email from Steve which stared at him whenever he opened his email account, and did his job. The company took several hits from what had happened, and his own actions, but it was getting better. His press conference had gone over really well and public opinion was with him. So Tony set about making plans, designing new tech, making calls to congressmen, running his charity foundation. He tried to put Pepper in charge of it but she wasn’t interested so he stayed in the lead and let her pick up the slack he dropped at Stark Industries. She was a better businesswoman than he was a businessman anyway. He was an inventor, not a businessman, that was probably why Stane had gotten away with what he was doing for so long. Tony knew he had to do something about that, he just wasn’t sure what to do.

He stayed in California even after he was healed because he was so busy with things, and it was easier to ignore Bucky and the damn Avengers there. Eventually though he had to give in. He had business in New York too, and it was home. So he and Pepper flew home. She was clearly happy about it but she didn’t say anything. When they did get into the city though she glanced at him. 

“Shall we go back to the tower?” she asked. 

“Where else would we go?” he asked her. 

“I’ve made sure that your… other apartment has been maintained,” Pepper told him, “and I could take you there if you prefer.” 

“No, thank you,” he told her, “It’s a nice place, but the tower is home. Maybe we can give the apartment to Kylie. She’s been staying in a guest room but she deserves her own place.” 

“Is that what you really want?” Pepper asked, “I just thought the place might hold sentimental value or something for you.”

“It’s not the place that I care about, Pep,” Tony answered. 

“Well if you’re sure I will arrange things,” Pepper agreed. 

“And have it arranged for the place to be redone however she likes it. I want her to have a home to come back to even if she does go off to school somewhere else,” he told her, “I’ll call her later to let her know, and tell her that we’re back in town so she can come visit if she wants.” 

“You’re really good with her you know?” Pepper asked. 

“I do my best,” Tony answered, “I just want her to have a good life. She deserves a good life. There are so many kids like her, good kids who deserve good lives and don’t get them, we should do something about it.” 

“We’ll see if we can get around to that in the middle of saving the planet via clean energy, demilitarization, and rescuing refugees,” Pepper laughed. 

“And fighting crime as Iron Man,” Tony told her, “I’ve told you that I’m going to keep doing that.” 

“And I’ve repeatedly begged you not to, not without support and or backup.” Pepper muttered. He grimaced. He had made the mistake about telling her that he had been offered a place among the Avengers and she was convinced it was the only way he could reasonably be a superhero and not die a horrible death. He rolled his eyes at her. 

“Anyway, let’s get home,” he said trying not to think about how it was already harder not to talk about James now that he was back in New York. 

That night as Tony lay in bed, he wondered if James was in town or on a mission elsewhere. Maybe he was just a few blocks away in his apartment with Ace and Delilah. Tony missed those dogs. He missed how sweet Bucky was with them. He was so cute, with Delilah, the big bulky soldier with his tiny pomeranian. Ace suited the ideal image better but whenever Bucky was with him the dog turned into a big old goofball, so happy and adoring of his owner. 

Tony missed going over there to see the three of them, the way the dogs slept on top of the both of them at night. He missed getting ready for bed next to James, cooking dinner next to him, the way they just sort of worked side by side no matter what. He missed curling up in his arms, and the way he laughed at Tony’s jokes. He missed the way he pulled James tied his hair into a messy bun when he needed it out of his way and the face he made at Tony when Tony teased him about sporting a man-bun. He missed the way the hair fell into his eyes whenever he laughed because he always leaned forwards slightly, and the way he shook it away again. He missed the way he kissed. He missed his sense of humor, always a little different than other people’s but perfect. He missed James’ smile, his scent. God he missed him. He sighed heavily. 

“Sir, are you well?” Jarvis asked softly. Tony sort of regretted giving him permission to ask that when he thought it prudent. 

“Nope, I miss James,” he answered anyway. He wouldn’t talk to anyone else about it but Jarvis wasn't really a person. 

“Would you like me to call him?” Jarvis asked. 

“No. We’re not together anymore, Jay, you know that. We do not call exes, I’m pretty sure I programmed that into you somewhere,” Tony muttered. 

“If you miss him, why don’t you get back together?” Jarvis asked, “Do you not love him anymore?” 

“God, Jarvis, that’s not the point,” Tomg snapped, “I know you’re trying to help but it’s very not helpful.”

“What is the point, sir?” Jarvis asked, “Perhaps I could be of help if I understood. As it is, I am not well versed in love.” 

“Lucky you,” Tony muttered, “the point is that he killed my parents. Everyone and their grandma has gone out of their way to tell me that it wasn’t him who did it, but it his hands killed my mother. How am I ever supposed to be with him if that’s all I can think about when I see him?” 

“Is that what you think of?” Jarvis asked. Tony called the image of James into his mind. His usual picture of him didn’t feature two arms, but he added the silver one in for good measure. He remembered the way it moved just like his real hand, the way James had been rubbing his metallic fingers anxiously in the hospital. He thought of the way James used his hand when he didn’t have the metal arm on, so efficient and nimble, always capable. He remembered the roughness of James’ hand, coupled with how gently he would touch Tony sometimes, brushing his fingers against Tony’s cheek affectionately, or playing with his hair.

“No,” he answered Jarvis quietly, tears welling in his eyes, “no more talking tonight Jay,” he added before his AI could say something. He didn’t think about his parents when he thought of James. Instead he thought of his own stupid self. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to love the man who killed his parents. He should have been furious. He wanted to be furious. If it was anyone but James he could have made himself be furious. Except it was James, and Tony wasn’t angry with him. He was angry with himself for not being angry with James. 

Tony sighed again, blinking up at the ceiling as tears rolled down his face. He didn’t bother trying to stop them or wipe them away. There would only be more. He had hit the end of being able to ignore his problems. Tony had a lot of thinking to do. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky was starting to get pissed at Steve. He hadn’t given Bucky any interesting missions since the Iron Man debacle. Of course Steve insisted that it was because things were quiet, or because someone else was best suited for a mission. Bucky wasn’t buying it. Steve was trying to protect him again which always drove him crazy. Their dynamic wasn’t supposed to work that way. Bucky was the one who protected Steve. That’s how it worked, that’s how it had always worked. When they were kids and Bucky had to pick him up after fights and make sure sickness didn’t kill him, when they were in the war and Bucky was always there with his rifle to shoot down any enemies Steve didn’t see or have time to get to. Ever since he had gotten back though Steve had been busy trying to take care of Bucky. He appreciated it, he did, and at first he had really needed it, but he was done being babied. All he wanted was to have a mission, to be moving, to kick the crap out of some bad guys instead of sitting around having to deal with his shitty feelings, but Steve wouldn’t let him. So when Steve called him into his office he was ready to let him have a piece of his mind. He swung the door open ready to rant. 

“Steve I-” that was as far as he got before falling silent at the sight of the other person in Steve’s office. 

“Anthony,” he said, stunned. Tony looked the same as he had at his press conference except his bruises were gone and the cut on his head had healed. Bucky thought he may have gotten tanner out in California though. He was wearing a purple suit this time, it was absolutely flawless. Bucky had thought he preferred the dressed down version of Tony he knew over the over the top peacock version he was in public, but he had to admit that the suits were growing on him. Tony looked stunning. 

“Hello, James,” Tony said. Bucky searched for any sort of anger or hatred in his voice, but it it was there he couldn’t hear it. 

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. 

“I decided to take Steve up on his offer to join the Avengers,” Tony answered, “I hope that’s still alright with you.” 

“It is,” Bucky told him, “I’m glad you decided to join us, it’s important to have a team backing you up out there. I just hope you’re not… uncomfortable with me being a part of the team.” 

“I think it will be fine. I hope it will anyway. I don’t really know, I’ve never done this before,” Tony admitted. 

“You’ll be great,” Bucky said, believing it entirely. 

“I can only hope I’ll be half as good of an Avenger as you are,” Tony murmured. 

“Okay, well why don’t you show Tony around, Buck? That way you can talk,” Steve suggested looking very awkward. 

“I would be glad to. If that’s alright with you, Tony?” Bucky said feeling even more awkward. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Tony since he came into the room and Tony had been staring back at him the whole time as well. He sort of wished he was dressed in something nicer than his black jeans and t-shirt. 

“Of course, I would appreciate the tour, and the chance to talk to you,” Tony said. 

“Okay,” Bucky agreed still not moving. Steve cleared his throat and Bucky finally startled into action, stepping back and waving Tony towards the door, “Right, this way,” he said. Tony stepped out of the office and Bucky followed him. 

“Okay, so you’ve got Steve’s office here, he runs this show mostly, Natasha, Clint, and I are all just down that way, our offices are labeled. Bruce doesn’t have an office in this way, he just has a lab downstairs. He’s strictly just a scientist here and we don’t like to bring up the Big Guy. Everything round here is underground because secret headquarters and such. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up,” Bucky said, he waved him down the hallway to the elevator. 

“We’ll get you programmed into the security soon,” Bucky said as the elevator scanned his fingerprint before it let him in. 

“Chance are I could hack it,” Tony offered studying the scanner and glancing around at the other security measures. 

“Comforting,” Bucky remarked as they stepped into the elevator, “if you tell Steve and you want to you could probably redo and improve all of the tech around here, including security,” he suggested. 

“I fully intend to. I bring more to the table than a pretty face and a metal suit,” Tony said, then seemed to realize what he said and blushed. He looked ready to say something else, apologize or something, but they were saved by the elevator doors dinging open on the bottom floor of the base. Bucky stepped out gratefully into the gym. The entirety of the bottom floor was a huge gym. They had an area of padded floor and walls in the back corner so they could spar without killing each other. There were punching bags and dummies, weights, a few weight machines, several treadmills in a row, and a jungle gym worth of metal bars and structures which generally only Nat and Clint ever used pulling themselves up onto bars and twisting and spinning and doing other shit no one should be able to do. Bucky avoided it except for the pull-up bar. 

“Wow, you guys are really focused on fitness huh?” Tony asked. 

“We are a superhero team, being in good enough shape to fight and hold your own is the whole gig,” Bucky answered, “and yes, it is mandatory for all members to train, even Bruce does basic training. You have to be able to defend yourself even if you don’t have your suit.”

“Oh goody,” Tony muttered, “exercise.”

“You’ll be fine, you’re in decent shape already, once the nutritionist gets you eating well enough to support it you’ll gain muscle easily and be fine,” Bucky said. 

“You have a nutritionist?” Tony asked. 

“Yup, Katie Jones, she doubles as nutritionist and trainer. Everyone here does monthly physicals with our staff doctor, Dr. Gimes and she reports everyone’s health status to Katie who designs a training regime and diet plan for each person. Her office is upstairs right next to Medical,” Bucky answered.

“Isn’t monthly check ups a bit much?” Tony asked. Bucky shrugged. 

“Not for us, we get our asses kicked every other day,” he said, “anyway, it’ll be good for you. You never did take good enough care of yourself before.” Tony just stared at him and Bucky sighed. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know it’s not my place. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said. Tony shook his head. 

“No, I-” he paused clearly searching for the right words, “you don’t make me uncomfortable,” Tony said at last, then grimaced and started pacing. 

“You alright?” Bucky asked. 

“Yeah, I’m fine that’s just not what I meant to say, I had it all planned out, how I was going to come here and sign on with Steve and then talk to you. I knew what I was going to say and everything and then I saw you and I forgot it all and now we’re here and it’s awkward and I still can’t find the words,” Tony ranted. Bucky reached out and took one of his hands gently to stop him from pacing. 

“Just take a deep breath, look at me, and talk. It’s fine, whatever you say, I’m fine,” he offered. Tony went still, took a deep breath, and then looked up into Bucky’s eyes. Bucky felt frozen as he stared back into Tony’s eyes, realizing that even though they had been staring at each other ever since he walked into Steve’s office, they hadn’t met each others eyes. 

“I am still in love with you,” Tony said after what felt like eternity. It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. Bucky blinked at him in shock. 

“What?” he asked, dumbstruck. 

“I’ve thought about it a lot. I mean, at first I didn’t want to think about any of it at all, but then I couldn’t help it and so I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I miss you. I wanted to be angry with you. I wanted to hate you for what you did, but I couldn’t and I hated myself for not hating you,” Tony said, babbling like he might die if he stopped to take a breath. 

“The thing is my parents have been dead for half of my life, and yeah I miss them and I wish they weren’t but I did my mourning a long time ago,” Tony continued, “In a way I’m really glad to know how and why they died instead of just having to wonder if fate wanted them dead or something stupid. It turns out the world doesn’t have it out for me, Hydra did. And I am angry, I am so angry with them for killing my parents, but that’s the thing, it was them who killed my parents, not you. You were as much their victim as anyone else, and when I think about you I don’t think about how you killed them, instead I think about how I miss your smile, and the way you smell, and the way you kiss, and just everything about you. I’ve missed you so fucking much, and I know we have a lot of messy history and we’re both messy people with enough flaws to cause the end of the world let alone a relationship, but I don’t care about any of that because I still love you so goddamn much it hurts and I want to be with you.” 

Bucky didn’t think before pulling Tony into a kiss, he just did it. Kissing him was the same as it had always been: perfect. He wasn’t exactly sure how they ended up desperately making out with Tony pressed against a wall, and he didn’t care. 

“I love you too,” he murmured to Tony in between kisses, “so much. God, I’ve missed you.” 

“Can we skip the rest of the tour?” Tony asked. Bucky chuckled and stopped kissing him so he could grab his hand and tug him towards a the only door leading off of the gym (besides the elevator and stairs). 

“Okay, I’ll just show you one more room,” he said. 

“Oh, and what’s that?” Tony asked. 

“The garage,” Bucky said, opening the door and towing Tony after him. He pulled him past the quinjets and other fancy bullshit to his car, and once they were out of the garage he drove home as fast as he could. It felt like no time at all before they were stumbling into his apartment kissing again, and barely avoiding tripping over Ace and Delilah who were barking and jumping at Tony happily. Bucky couldn’t blame them. His heart felt like it just might implode with joy at finally having Tony back in his arms. He had never really thought it was possible. Both he and Tony kept laughing and grinning incredulously in between kissing each other. Whatever else happened, they were together and nothing was going to ruin that. 

~~~~~~

“Hey honey?” Tony murmured later while they were curled up together in Bucky’s bed, cuddling sleepily. 

“Yeah?” Bucky answered turning so he could press a kiss to Tony’s cheek. 

“Is it cool if I still call you James?” Tony asked.

“Only if you don’t mind if I still call you Anthony sometimes,” Buck told him. 

“Okay, I like that,” Tony said with a smile, kissing him softly, “So I have to confirm for my peace of mind that we are officially together again.” Bucky laughed. 

“Yes,” he agreed, “I’m holding onto you for as long as you’ll let me.” 

“You should know I don’t have a history of doing well in relationships,” Tony warned, “I’ve only ever had one long term boyfriend before and he ended up being the person responsible for hunting me down and arresting me so…” he said smirking.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Bucky said. 

“Yeah, on a serious note though, I cannot promise that the whole ‘you killed my parents’ thing won’t come up and bother me at certain points in time. Even if I throw it in your face like an absolute asshole, which I probably will because I’m a dick, you should know that I will still love you and I will get over it.” 

“It’s alright, Tony,” Bucky told him, “we all have our baggage. We’ll handle ours together.” 

“That sounds good,” Tony said, smiling at him. Bucky knew they were on the same page. They were both flawed, they both had trauma and baggage, but they were going to face the rest of life side by side, and it would be easier because of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all let me know what you thought of this if you managed to get all the way through! I live off of comments and kudos. 
> 
> What Happens After this Fic, You Ask? Well they are together and happy, Bucky moves in with Tony. They both publicly come out when they get engaged. Tony asks Bucky because Bucky is still hesitant to push their relationship forward because he feels like he’s already pushing his luck just being lucky enough that Tony forgave him. Tony rids him of this eventually by loving him endlessly. Everyone freaks out like “holy shit, Captain America’s best friend is queer! How will he react?” and Steve just comes back like “well I’m bisexual as hell soo…” The homophobes are losing their shit and the queer community is like “fuck yes! The Avengers are queer Icons!” Then there is much celebration! Steve ends up with Sam in this universe. 
> 
> Meanwhile Kylie (who is basically Tony’s adopted daughter by this point) goes to NYU and lives in the apartment Tony gave her happily. She does super brilliantly in school and her pursuits. Tony steps down and makes Pepper CEO of Stark Industries, maintaining a significant role and inventing new tech but he really isn’t a businessman. Instead Tony focuses on his husband, his superheroing and his charities. After he and Bucky get married Tony, Bucky, and Kylie found a charity/shelter for queer homeless youth. Peter gets involved in said charity as a volunteer and that’s how he and Tony meet and Tony comes to take him under his wing. Then they all Live Happily Ever After. Well they’re superheroes, so they fight evil shit, but they always win and nothing seriously bad ever happens to any of the avengers. EVER. (Do not speak to me about Infinity War I am so pissed I cannot speak of it).

**Author's Note:**

> Hope people like this, this is my first multichapter work in this fandom, and my first ever work for this ship, go easy on me.


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